Do It For Uncle Graham
Written and directed by Candy Jones
For more information, visit <http://doitforunclegraham.com>.
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JUST-US PRODUCTIONS, L.L.C.
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#218
SANTA FE NEW MEXICO USA 87508
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Bill Nevins
New Mexico shares with Japan and some Pacific island nations the terrible distinction of having come under direct nuclear attack. That is the message delivered by Candy Jones's new documentary film, Do It For Uncle Graham.
Taking its title from one of Jones' ancestors who stood up in defence of the people of the US southwest, Do It For Uncle Graham uses wit, humor and journalistic skill to uncover a very scary story of government disregard for the health and lives of citizens in the poorest and most militarised state in the US. Filmmaker Candy Jones shows us the true horror lurking behind the Land of Enchantment advertising facade put forth by New Mexico's tourist bureau.
That horror includes a history of aboveground and underground nuke detonations, forced displacement, catastrophic environmental destruction and obscenely dangerous working conditions that have resulted in the deaths of untold numbers of New Mexicans over the past 60 years.
All this, as the film shows us so well, has been accompanied by government lies, arrogance and recklessness on a scale that would be hilariously absurd if it were not so deadly serious.
New Mexico, of course, is stolen land to begin with. The former Mexican province was kept in the status of a "US territory" (or colony, like Puerto Rico or Iraq) until the early 1900s when the US Anglo settler population had become large enough to "merit" statehood. The indigenous Native and Chicano peoples of New Mexico were disregarded by the US authorities. Efforts at resistance were labelled "savagery", "tribal war" and "banditry" while US capitalists, backed by US armed forces, plunged in to grab New Mexico's natural resources. Sound familiar?
In Do It For Uncle Graham, Candy Jones picks up New Mexico history at the point during World War II when the US government chose Los Alamos, an idyllic mountain region in northern New Mexico, for its atomic weapons research and development centre. Soon after that, the White Sands desert area of southern New Mexico received the dubious honour of becoming the site for the Trinity atomic weapons explosions. The people who lived in those areas were made to move or, in many cases, to stay around and "enjoy" radioactive fallout and waste leakage.
The film's most poignant moments are the footage devoted to the Dineh (Navajo) nation of indigenous peoples, North America's largest indigenous population, centered in western New Mexico and Arizona.
The sadness on the faces of the proud Dineh spokespeople interviewed in this film speaks volumes about the meaning of betrayal. One indigenous leader, dressed in colorful traditional garb, painfully expresses deep disappointment in New Mexico's Congressional delegation (Senator Peter Domenici and Representative Heather Wilson). He seems close to tears as he tells the camera that these "leaders" are no longer welcome on Dineh land because of what they have allowed to happen to the Dineh people.
This is a detailed, humourous, frightening and infuriating film, all at once. It is being widely screened at schools and communities centres across "occupied" New Mexico, and it is becoming part of the building "resistance" movement within this state. It is also being screened at the Durango, Colorado Film Festival, March 6-14, and at other film festivals nationally. This film should be seen by everyone.
From Green Left Weekly, March 10, 2004.
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