New Mexico
In search of Oppenheimer's New Mexico
On the highway between Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch is Bode’s General Store – a roadside waystation beloved for its tamales and green chili burgers. It is not so different than it was 80 years ago, when O’Keeffe and Oppenheimer were among its clientele. And during the filming of Oppenheimer, Ybbaro said, it was a standby for cast and crew, too.
Oppenheimer’s invisible legacy
Oppenheimer and colleagues took more than inspiration from these landscapes. Families with land downwind from White Sands or any of the hundreds of uranium mining sites in the region – a community known today as “downwinders” – know the Manhattan Project cost untold lives in New Mexico. In the forthcoming documentary First We Bombed New Mexico, filmmaker Lois Lipman shares dozens of accounts that together paint the picture of “massive cancers and deaths” that swept across the state in the decades after the Trinity test.
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People can still experience the landscapes central to this part of the story, too – if they dare. Places like Hoot Owl Canyon, once called “Hot Canyon” by the government because of its red-hot gamma radiation levels from the Trinity test’s nuclear fallout carried by the wind, are open to the public, Lipman said. There are no recent studies indicating whether the area is still radioactive. But radioactivity in nuclear fallout has a shelf life of 24,000 years – or as some downwinders put it, 7,000 generations.
Like the scenic Pajarito Plateau and Ghost Ranch, Hot Canyon, with its red-rock bridges and pinnacles, is forever linked with Oppenheimer – albeit controversially. Indeed, 18 months after the Manhattan Project started, Oppenheimer is said to have stared out over the desert he loved, and confessed, “I am responsible for ruining a beautiful place.”
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The University of New Mexico plans to build new gates at four campus entrances along Central that will close nightly.
The gates will replace manual barriers in a project expected to cost about $1.5 million.
The Board of Regents approved the security upgrades for the UNM campus.
University officials said the gates will automatically close nightly from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The gates will go in near Princeton Drive, Stanford Drive, Yale Boulevard and Terrace Street on the south end of campus.
A current rendering shows the gate completely blocking the road. Officials said the change will reduce unauthorized traffic and allow police officers to focus more effectively on prevention and response.
Construction will start in May. University officials hope to finish the project by September.
A 9-year-old boy who begged to be released from an immigration detention center so he could attend his state spelling bee has been freed with his family, their lawyer said Wednesday.
Deiver Henao Jimenez made the plea during a video call this month with children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Accurso.
“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Deiver said on the call, which was later shared on Accurso’s social media pages. “Nothing is good here.”
He and his parents, asylum-seekers from Colombia, had been held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in South Texas since early March, when they were detained during a routine immigration check-in in New Mexico, according to their lawyer, Corey Sullivan Martin.
ICE freed the family on humanitarian parole Wednesday, about a week after Martin filed a request for their release and days after NBC News reported on their case.
His elementary school principal wrote a letter in mid-March supporting the family’s release, which was later delivered to immigration officials, describing Deiver as “a dedicated student with excellent attendance and high marks.”
Sullivan Martin said Deiver is eager to return to school, rejoin his gifted and talented classes and get back to practicing his spelling words.
“I don’t see how it was necessary at all to detain a child who was doing exactly what we want children to do,” Sullivan Martin said.
The family planned to return to New Mexico, she said, where they will continue checking in with immigration officials while their case proceeds.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Deiver was released a day after ICE freed another child whose case drew widespread attention following a video call with Accurso. Gael, a 5-year-old boy with developmental disabilities, had experienced worsening medical issues while he was detained at Dilley, his parents said.
The facility has faced growing scrutiny from immigration lawyers and advocates, who say children there have struggled to access adequate medical care and education in an environment where lights remain on around the clock and officers stand guard. Some families have described poor food and long waits for medical attention.
DHS has disputed those accounts, saying families are provided appropriate care in a facility designed for their needs.
After her video meetings with the children, Accurso — known for her signature pink headband and singsong delivery — called for Dilley to be shut down and for families to be returned to their communities.
During their conversation, Deiver told Accurso he missed his friends and said the food at Dilley made his stomach hurt. But he was most worried about getting out in time to compete in New Mexico’s state spelling bee in May after he earned a spot by placing third at a regional competition.
“We’re trying to get a child out of a jail to do a spelling bee,” Accurso said last week. “I just never thought those words would go together.”
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