Campaign Nonviolence National Conference - Panel Discussion Nuclear Weapons Los Alamos and Nonviolence
Jay Coughlan, NukeWatch New Mexico, lays out the startling facts on the current state of the United States nuclear arsenal and current modernization plans which are leading to what some people are calling the “Second Nuclear Age”. Bud Ryan, filmmaker of The Forgotten Bomb, relates the personal story of traveling to Hiroshima with his Japanese-American wife, and the galvanizing effect the trip had on him. Marian Naranjo, founder and director of Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE), and a potter and organizer from Santa Clara Pueblo, opened with a prayer and asked everyone to remember whose homelands the conference was taking place on. Marian also asked all participants to take action with the pueblo, including writing letters to tribal officials. Beata Tsosie-Peña from Santa Clara Pueblo offered remarks and a beautiful, evocative, and eye-opening poem. The panel concluded with Rev James Lawson’s clear eloquence on his personal experience of the atomic bomb as a high schooler in 1945. Rev. Lawson went on to discuss the connections of nuclear weapons to many forms of injustice and domination perpetrated by the United States.
Marian Naranjo
Marian Naranjo is the founder and director of Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE), a community-based organization located at Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. She is the mother of four and grandmother of seven, and a lifelong traditional potter. She has worked actively for over twenty years to address environmental and health issues for her region and the Santa Clara Pueblo. The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is located within her ancestral homelands. Currently, she serves as the Communities for Clean Water supervisor/mentor for the Youth Council Initiative Project. Her work with HOPE also includes cultural preservation and reclamation projects within the Santa Clara Pueblo that promote sustainability for traditional lifeways. She also supports and participates in projects that preserve and protect sacred sites in New Mexico.
