Nuclear Coloniality: The Legacy of the Manhattan Project in New Mexico

Myrriah Gómez, author of "Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos," will examine the legacy of the Manhattan Project — the atomic bomb development project that started in New Mexico in the 1940s — to examine why the U.S. continues to build new weapons and continues to build them in New Mexico.

She will discuss the critical impacts of nuclear colonialism on communities of color, rural communities, and historically poor communities in New Mexico.

Myrriah Gómez is an associate professor in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico. She is a nuevomexicana from the Pojoaque Valley in northern New Mexico. She earned her PhD in English with an emphasis in Latina/o literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Gómez, a 2011 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, joined the UNM Honors College in 2016, where she teaches classes related to New Mexico and environmental justice. Her work can be found in Science Fiction Studies, Honors in Practice, and Latin American Literature Today, among other places. Gómez’s monograph "Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos," demonstrates how earlier eras of settler colonialism laid the foundation for nuclear colonialism in New Mexico.

This presentation, offered in-person and via Zoom, is part of the annual Science and Math Colloquium series of the School of Applied Sciences and Arts, in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts at ASU Polytechnic campus.