Just say how you feel

About a month ago LANL (The Los Alamos National Laboratory for those of you non-NM’s. That’s where the Atomic Bomb was created) held public hearings on the burn permits they have. I have a cousin who works at LANL and this topic was on her facebook. At some point in the conversation she said “just say how you feel.” Out of love and respect for my cousin, at that time, I said…Nothing. It was a very difficult time for her and around that time I had gone in at another family member on facebook and we’re no longer friends. And she had already had one family member challenge her that day in person. So I let it ride.

I sat on what I thought. I rolled around in it. Today on my way to daycare I heard Jay Electronica say, “You either build or destroy where you come from.” And what I felt that day came back to me.

Here. Is how I feel.

Say how I feel?

I was raised in that valley so you don’t want to know how I feel about this situation.

How I feel is the same way people in that valley have always felt about that Lab, about this situation. Como no valemos nada. We have no worth. We don’t matter. What happens to us doesn’t matter. No one ever asked before because our voice never mattered. Our health never mattered. It is very easy for those who are, very literally, at the top to forget about those at the bottom. It’s easy to never think about what happens at the bottom of that hill when you are at the top.

We are not stupid. We are not country. We are not a bunch of dumb Indians. We are a community who lives and dies at the bottom of that hill. And what you do up there effects us everyday.

It easy I understand to get caught up in what you do. You are the department of defense and the US is at war. WE are also at war against YOU as we have been since the 1940’s. But what we fight for is our health. Our families. Our future in this valley. And it’s easy to forget that when YOU DON’T LIVE THERE and you are not from there. And it’s easy to forget what you do up there directly effects us everyday. It is easy to forget when it is not your land that won’t yield crops. When it is not your water that is contaminated. When it is not your mothers breast cancer. It is not your deformed and disfigured wildlife. It is easy to forget that we are people and your faulty choices effect us. It trickles down that mountain everyday.

The Juarez Family is tied to no where. We have been urban for the past 3 generations. We are not tied to a land or a place we are professionals who make our living with our brains not with our hands. It is difficult for our family to understand the relationship one can have with the Earth. The Gallegos’, my mother’s family, are farmers. They have lived in the same valley for HUNDREDS of years. My mother was raised in the home my Grandfather was born in. My grandfather still plants on the land his grandfather planted on. This place is not far from Los Alamos, it is Antonito, CO, 3 hours north. Some of my families land was included in land grants that live in Northern New Mexico to this day. Lands that are effected by LANL. It easy to intellectualize away the damage the DOD does to this land when you have no connection to ANY land. When it is not your livelihood. When it is not YOUR HISTORY.

For so many of our people in Northern New Mexico their families land is all they have. In the years when jobs are scarce and there is not much money to be made they are confident in their ability to grow enough food on their land for their familes. They are confident in their ability to raise a cow or two for milk and for meat. They are confident that the well on their land will continue to provide clean water. The LANL take that confidence away. I grew up on a well. When your water comes from the ground you become dependent on your community. Everyone must be conscious of what they put in the ground, how much water they use, where they dig, because everyone is connected in there is only so much water for all of us.

How do I feel? I feel like a piece of my heart lives in that valley everyday. A piece of my heart drinks that water, breaths that air. A piece of my heart learns there AND teaches there everyday. And everyday those pieces are at risk. You ask how my cousins who are fighting this war in Iraq would feel knowing that people oppose the Labs. I ask how they will feel when they come home to nothing…or worse. You work at the top of that hill. WE grew up in that valley. That is OUR HOME.

When I was in high school there was a big fire in Los Alamos. It was huge. It was so big that they evacuated all they way to Espanola. Not because the fire had spread that far but because the smoke had turned the sky an eerie shade of red, like blood, and it was raining ash. Because it was dangerous for us to breath air. Don’t tell me “its just a burn permit” “they’re not burning anything toxic.” Everything you do up there comes down on us, hurts us, puts us in danger.

“You either build or destroy where you come from” That is how I feel.