The Devil’s Bargain: The Effects of Nuclear Revolution on New Mexican Culture of Work

Abstract

In the winter of 1942-1943, the Manhattan Project arrived in New Mexico and joined the “Land of Enchantment” and nuclear science in an indelible bond. In the postwar decades, what was at first a hurriedly-built scientific community in the Jemez Mountains grew not only to become the Los Alamos National Laboratories, but also acted as a catalyst for an influx of scientific colonization, as the laboratories produced extensions and partner institutions along the Rio Grande River. This development flooded the region with employment opportunities that were new and radically different from the types of occupations previously known to the residents of New Mexico. This essay examines one of the Manhattan Project’s local legacies by showing how the creation of New Mexico’s nuclear complex affected employment patterns and cultures of work in the region. After centuries of dependence on the land, New Mexicans switched to a dependence on nuclear jobs. For many, this shift seemed like a bonanza; however, as the history of the last seventy years has shown, the new economy has come to be regarded as a “Devil’s bargain” as the change has not always meant improvements in the lives and environments of the indigenous inhabitants.