Legacies in Film 'Trespassing' Exposed U.S. Nuclear Industry Targeting Native Americans

Censored around the world, “Trespassing,” reveals Native Americans targeted by the United States nuclear industry

Legacies in Film Series

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

TUCSON, Arizona (2006) – “Trespassing,” censored in more film festivals worldwide than it has been shown, reveals how the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Mojave, Western Shoshone, Navajo and Pueblo were targeted by the nuclear industry.

Trespassing documents the Colorado River Indian Tribes, Mojave, Chemehuevi, Cocopah, and Quechan, protecting sacred Spirit Mountain and the desert tortoise from the proposed nuclear dump at Ward Valley.

The successful protest and occupation at Ward Valley in the Mojave desert, which included facing off with the Bureau of Land Management, spanned the years from 1995 to 1999. The long struggle resulted in victory.

The film documents the ongoing Western Shoshone protest of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site and the proposed nuclear dump on ancestral lands at Yucca Mountain.

Western Shoshone Corbin Harney speaks on water and unity during the Sunrise Ceremony at Ward Valley during the resistance.
Uranium mining meant cancer and death for Navajos and Pueblos who worked in the mines and were never told about the radiation. Their families ate the food covered with the radioactive dust.

Dorothy Purley, Laguna Pueblo, was one of them. Dorothy drove a truck at Jackpile mine on the Pueblo for ten years. She died of cancer during the making of the film.

Cancers also spread through the Navajo communities, including Red Valley, south of Shiprock, New Mexico, where Dineh uranium miners ate their lunch and drank water covered with radioactive dust.

While being censored around the world, it won a prestigious award at the Tucson International Film Festival in 2006.

Filmmaker Carlos DeMenezes talks with Censored News about the making of the film and the rejections by global film festivals.

Read the full article at Censored Newshttps://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2022/08/censored-trespassing-film-reveals.html

Top photo: Native Elders at the Ward Valley resistance: Western Shoshone Corbin Harney, Quechan Wally Antone and Mojave Llewellyn Barrackman. Photo by Molly Johnson.