Yellow Dirt

An American Story of a Poisoned Land and a People Betrayed

De: Judy Pasternak

Narrado por: Laural Merlington

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe of people. The Navajo worked unprotected in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Long after these mines were abandoned, Navajos in all four corners of the Reservation (which borders Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) continued grazing their animals on sagebrush flats riddled with uranium that had been blasted from the ground. They drank contaminated water from old pits, which had filled with rain. They built their houses out of chunks of yellowcake, they inhaled radioactive dust borne aloft from the waste piles the mining companies had left behind, and their children played in the unsealed mines themselves.

Ten years after the mines closed, the cancer rate on the reservation shot up and the babies began to be born with crooked fingers that fused together into claws as they grew. Scientists filed complaints about the situation with the government but were told it was a mess "too expensive" to clean up. Few had heard this story until Judy Pasternak exposed it in a prizewinning Los Angeles Times series. Her work not only inspired this book, which is already a winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Award, it also galvanized both a congressman and a famous prosecutor to clean the sites and get reparations for the tribe. Yellow Dirt powerfully chronicles both the scandal of neglect and the Navajo’s fight for justice.

©2010 Judy Pasternak (P)2010 Tantor

Reseñas de la Crítica

"An explosive account.... Disturbing and well-documented." (Kirkus)

Yellow Power Review

I enjoyed the book and learned quite a lot about the uranium mining and the failure to clean up the mess. It's sad that Native Americans, the Dine were treated so badly and ignored when health issues became a devastation around the mining areas. a great book to read.

Dirty little secret of nuclear development

A good accounting of the disregard the government has for human life, in general, in the pursuit of world political supremacy, and for native lives in particular, in this story. Wherever one stands on the ethics of developing nuclear energy and weapons, the amoral behavior detailed in this book is shameful.

A terrific history of a national shame

This is an amazing history of an American tragedy. I can not praise this book enough. It's the work of an LA Times reporter who brought to light the betrayal of the Navaho People for the uranium below their land. The book starts in the beginning of the arms race and continues to this day. She is a fantastic writer and this is a great book.

Great Read.

This is an important book which points out the true cost of the atomic age.

People Live This Everyday!

If you could sum up Yellow Dirt in three words, what would they be?

Absolutely jaw dropping!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Yellow Dirt?

The fact that Native Americans in general and Navajos in particular are a throw away society to the government. All anyone cared about was the uranium and getting enough to make bombs. Generations of families are forever changed by greedy men whose only thought was MORE.

What does Laural Merlington bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

An attempt at pronouncing the Navajo words.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

All that glitters is not gold.

Any additional comments?

A well researched and stunning look at the effects of unchecked ethics toward The Navajos. It is the story of greedy and power hungry men who took advantage of the resources and lives of the Navajo People.