Decolonizing Cartographies: Sovereignty, Territoriality, and Maps of Meaning in the Uranium Landscape

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Decolonizing Cartographies: Sovereignty, Territoriality, and Maps of Meaning in the Uranium Landscape A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies by Traci Brynne Voyles Committee in charge: Professor Ross Frank, Chair Professor Lisa Sun-Hee Park, Co-Chair Professor Yen Le Espiritu Professor David Naguib Pellow Professor Lisa Yoneyama 2010 Copyright Traci Brynne Voyles, 2010 All rights reserved. The dissertation of Traci Brynne Voyles is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Chair University of California, San Diego 2010 iii DEDICATION In 2009 I received a teaching award that I was to accept at an awards ceremony in front of UCSD’s chancellor. In my acceptance speech, against my father’s mild objections that this was not the moment for “political statements,” I called on the chancellor to respond to the demands of the Literature Department that they be moved from a building that was suspected to be causing a cancer cluster. In my mind, the decision to give voice to the demand was simple: either boycott the awards ceremony, say something to the chancellor personally, or use the platform I was given in order to redirect the conversation about teaching in academia back to a case of environmental injustice occurring on our very campus. Since I had received the award for teaching a course on environmental injustice, I couldn’t very well let the opportunity slip by. It is in this same spirit—that of using the platforms you are given, when you are given them—that I offer a demand rather than a dedication: UCSD, repatriate the remains. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page …………….……………………………………………….…..iii Dedication…….. ……………………….………………………………………iv Table of Contents ……………………………………..……………………….. v List of Figures……………………………………………………….………….vi Acknowledgements …………………………………………………….…...…vii Vita…………………………………………………………………………….xii Abstract of the Dissertation……….………………………………………….xvii Preface Welcome to Mine Country…………………………………………….1 Introduction The Uranium Landscape………………………………………….6 Chapter 1 Intimate Cartographies…………………………………….………..50 Chapter 2 Prospecting for the Magic Ore…………………………………….100 Chapter 3 Stop the Rape of Mount Taylor……………………………………151 Chapter 4 Origin Stories and Indian Country………………………………...204 Conclusion The Heart of Navajo Land…………………………………….....248 Bibliography……………………………………………………………….....254 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 The view of the Peabody Coal slurry from Highway 160........................ 2! Figure 2 Uranium Bike Shop, Moab, Utah;............................................................ 4! Figure 3 The Uranium Offices, Moab, Utah........................................................... 4! Figure 4 The Uranium Landscape......................................................................... 12! Figure 5 National Indian Youth Council map of the uranium landscape ............. 14! Figure 6 Image from New Mexico Mapping Advisory Committee, 1955 ........... 33! Figure 7 "Evolution of the Navajo Reservation" .................................................. 78! Figure 8 Colorado Plateau uranium district, Life magazine in 1955 .................. 118! Figure 9 US Reservations by Primary Use, 1881-1957...................................... 124! Figure 10 Showing the percentage of federal lands by state, 1957 .................... 124! Figure 11 Memo from Kerr McGee Corporation to the AEC ............................ 146! Figure 12 Navajo Nation and uranium industry map.......................................... 147! Figure 131979 Stop the Rape of Mount Taylor protest poster ........................... 162! Figure 14 An undated poster protesting uranium mining ................................... 176! Figure 15 Traditional Cultural Property Map ..................................................... 189! Figure 16 Final TCP Map ................................................................................... 190! Figure 17 Inset of Figure 16................................................................................ 191! Figure 18 The checkerboard ............................................................................... 227! Figure 19 Uranium deposits map........................................................................ 227! Figure 20 Map showing results of CRUMP radiation study............................... 244! Figure 21 CRUMP photo of an abandoned tailings pile..................................... 246! Figure 22 Map of "Navajo Country...as Described in Various Documents."..... 249! vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Given the extraordinary amount of time and labor that goes into a doctoral dissertation, the word “acknowledgement” seems too weak a word for the process of giving thanks and recognition to those people who built the scaffolding of the final dissertation. My first thanks must go out to all the folks in New Mexico who spend their days working to promote environmental justice in the uranium landscape, and who took time out of that work to talk with me: Michael Jensen of Amigos Bravos, and Chris Shuey and Paul Robinson of the Southwest Research and Information Center were indispensable resources. The archival research for the project was funded by the New Mexico Office of the State Historian Research Fellows Program, and this fellowship gave me more than a research opportunity: it gave me an opportunity to present my work at a public lecture and to meet interesting, committed activists and scholars in New Mexico. My time as a fellow with OSH was absolutely critical to the development of this project as a whole. Dennis Trujillo and Estevan Rael-Galvez acted as mentors during that time, and I owe them a deep gratitude for their support and the potential they saw in my work. During the writing phase of the research, I was lucky to be able to attend the Transnational Feminism and Justice Dissertation Writing Workshop in 2009, with its theme of “Transnationalizing Justice.” During one eye-opening weekend in northern California, Professors Gina Dent and Roshanak Keshti took a handful of dissertators from universities across California and gave us the opportunity to share our work. Certainly few graduate students get such an opportunity. This workshop provided intellectual and professional support that guided me through the dissertation-writing phase, and I will take the skills and knowledge I gained during that weekend wherever my career leads. vii My fellow graduate students in the Ethnic Studies Department have provided years of support, encouragement, and friendship as we walked this challenging path to our respective degrees. I would like to thank Angela Morrill, Maile Arvin, Ma Vang, Maria Teresa Cesena, Kit Myers, Long Bui, Angela Kong, Thea Quiray Tagle, and Cathi Kozen, many of whom have read drafts of these chapters, participated in writing groups with me, and generally offered their support and advice. Thuy Vo Dang, Theresa Cenidoza Suarez and Julietta Hua have been friends and mentors. Together, as we babysat, got pedicures, and met for late night cocktails or afternoon margaritas, we talked about work, life, and professionalization; in the end, these women taught me more about myself and my work than I ever could have learned on my own. Jose Fuste and Theofanis Verinakis were the best friends I could have asked for in graduate school. These are friendships born of long nights of studying, talking, writing, and talking some more— they will always be part of my life and part of this work. The last few years of graduate work should prepare a young scholar for the rigors of assistant professorship, and in the Ethnic Studies Department at UCSD I was fortunate to develop relationships with a number of our assistant professors who were willing to help me on that path from student to professor. It is no exaggeration to credit Kalindi Vora and K. Wayne Yang with teaching me how to teach—and in Professor Yang’s case, teaching me that students should always be expected, at some point in the quarter, to sing. Roshanak Keshti, Kirstie Dorr, and Sarah Clarke Kaplan all made time to talk with me about professionalization, dissertating, and the job market. Their advice was always sound, sympathetic, and deeply appreciated. Finally, the skills I learned as Adria Imada’s viii research assistant were indispensable to the archival work I conducted for this dissertation, proving yet again that no skills you learn as an academic ever go to waste. It is impossible to thank a doctoral committee enough for the work they do on your behalf. For over four years, Lisa Yoneyama has given me the confidence, through her tough questions and unwavering faith in my ability to answer them, to continue in academia. I have been honored to have her be a part of this work. Yen Le Espiritu saw me through my gawkish first years as a graduate student, through the trials of my master’s thesis, and through, in the end, my dissertation defense. In all of those seven years, she has supported me and given me an example to aspire to; as I told many, many graduate students in our program, “Yen makes everything clear.” A trip to her office could more often than not untangle an otherwise hopeless knot of ideas. In addition to all the other work of being a committee member, Yen wrote letters of recommendation on my behalf whenever I needed them—and, as any graduate student knows, these letters are an indispensable part of our professional work. I can pinpoint the

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