Oral History | Uranium Memories Project
July 17, 2025 • 1:13:36

INTERVIEWER
Megan Vickery
INTERVIEWEE
Conrad Yanito

Megan Vickery 00:00
My name is Megan Vickery. We are at the Moab museum recording this interview for the Moab Museum’s Uranium Memories Project. It is July 17, 2025. I’m here with Conrad. Conrad, do you want to introduce yourself?
Conrad Yanito 00:12
Yes. My name is Conrad Yanito. I am of the Navajo Nation tribe, also known as the Dine people from the Four Corners area, and I live in Moab, been a resident. I grew up here in Moab. Parents are from the Four Corners area, so, yeah.
Megan Vickery 00:26
Nice. Thank you. Do you want to just start with telling me a little bit about — you were born in Moab, but what brought your family here to Moab?
Conrad Yanito 00:45
So what brought us to Moab? I was born in Monticello. My father had gotten just out of college, and he’d gotten a job with a gas company — at the time was called Northwest Pipeline, which is now Williams Pipeline now. And he started working here in Moab, and he started up in actually Rangely, worked up there for about six months, and then moved to Moab, and then he came and got our family in [post-interview correction: south of Bluff, on the reservation] and we’ve been here since 1974. So, and that’s how we came to Moab, and my dad worked and retired with the same company he started with when he brought [to] Moab.
Megan Vickery 01:30
Wow, nice. What was your childhood like growing up here?
Conrad Yanito 01:30
My childhood was — it was, it was fun, you know, a little different, because, you know, in the 80s and early 70s a little tough. You know, growing up as a minority, very few Navajos in town. So just to get things and do those kind of things are a little tough. But at the same time, MUA was a little welcoming,
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but it there were some tough times. But other than that, we we adjusted and we overcame adversity a lot of times, and in here we are today. So but yeah.
Megan Vickery 02:11
Were there other Native families around?
Conrad Yanito 02:13
There were a few natives here in town. Lot of them that were here were working with the Atlas mine at the time.
Conrad Yanito 02:19
A lot of them were. Atlas the main mill, mine, I think it was. Atlas Mill — it wasn’t a mine. They were just, I believe, milling the ore here in town. So a lot of Native Americans were here. There were a lot. A lot of them were family members of my mom and dad. I barely knew them — I never knew of them, only [did] because they were always, most of the time, working or every week, they’d always go home for the reservation. So, and we usually stayed — my dad would keep us up here, and we stayed on weekends here. Every so often we’d go home and go visit family on the reservation. But the majority of the family that lived here that are Native Americans did work at Atlas Mines. So yes, Atlas Mill, sorry.
Megan Vickery 02:19
Really?
Megan Vickery 03:05
Right, yeah. And what did your parents do?
Conrad Yanito 03:09
So my parents, my father, was a line technician, or a pipeline technician. So he monitored all the flows and monitored all the pumps and all the data reports that he needed to turn in, that they needed so they can see the adequate flow through this through the state. And my mother worked. At the beginning of her career, she started working as a housekeeper, and then later on, moved into working for the school as a school cook. And my mom finished her career and retired with the school district of Grand County.
Megan Vickery 03:51
Okay, so you said family members worked with Atlas. What was your family’s connection in general to the uranium industry?
Conrad Yanito 04:00
So as far as uranium industries, I had a grandfather that worked in the mill, or not mill, but the mining itself down in Blanding. He worked at two different places in Blanding. One was called the Cottonwood Canyon area. And then the other one was the Ranch Horn Uranium, which is also in Blanding. So he was working at two places there. I think he mentioned to my mom that he was transferring back and forth, but they’re two different owners. It was like one day they didn’t need him at one job, and then — he was like a labor hand, I guess, at the bottom of the totem pole — when they didn’t need him, he’d go down the road and work with another ownership of that [other] mine. He worked there a couple weeks
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or months, whatever it is, and they’d let him go and then he’d go back to other one. And so he bounced back and forth between the two.
Megan Vickery 04:53
Does it seemed like that’s something a lot of people did?
Conrad Yanito 05:00
I think a lot, I think a lot of them. Now, don’t correct, don’t quote me too much, on that one, I’m not sure. I would imagine it was probably because of seniority. Because at the time, I think a lot of the uranium at that time was booming — the 50s and in the early 60s, — they were definitely, you know, producing a lot. And that’s when places like Atlas Mines and the White Mesa Mills were both –you know, Atlas Mills,
was also running. So they’re producing and sending [ore] there to be processed and whatnot. So other than that, I think that a lot of them were — Traveling was probably the hardest for some, because a lot of it back in the day, they were in wagons, or they were on burrows or horses at the time, or even just plain on foot, traveling between the two places just to make a living. And all of them just lived in huts and whatever they can make manageable to live in, you know, to stay around these mine sites and stuff like that. So, yeah, so I think a lot of them would come and go depending on what’s going on at the time. Like I said, whether it could be an issue that they can’t stand the cold or the heat, and they go home and come back at a certain time. So they come back kind of like a seasonal kind of a thing. So, but yeah, so he managed back and forth. That’s how he traveled between jobs and going home. I think he was on a horse a couple times more than anything.
Megan Vickery 06:23
So this is your grandfather. Do you have an idea of what years — around what time he was working?
Conrad Yanito 06:31
He was working right around 1959 to right around about 1960
Megan Vickery 06:36
Okay.
Conrad Yanito 06:37
So, yeah he worked a little bit there. He was a miner. He was also a wrangler. So his passion was more of a wrangler than anything. So when he found out that, you know, being a wrangler wasn’t producing a lot of money at the time, unless you lived up in field places like Cortez or places such as Blanding, you
know. But That’s when he went into the mining business and tried to being a laborer there and making money out of that.
Megan Vickery 07:06
So it was lucrative at that time?
Conrad Yanito 07:08
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, as far as all my other uncles that worked here in town in Moab at the Atlas Mill, they were — one was a welder. He was more like a maintenance guy, and then the other ones
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were processors and then truck drivers. So basically, they’re unloading the ore and transferring ores to either trains or transfers from one other place, however they transferred [the ore] and stuff like that. Yeah, so, and then, and I think that was majority, I think I had four uncles that worked there at the Atlas Mill at the time.
Megan Vickery 07:09
Were you close with them? Do you remember them talking about it?
Conrad Yanito 07:54
Yeah we [were], I was close to, actually, you know I was close to all of them, to be honest with you. Sadly, they’ve all passed. They were, you know, — my mom [adored] one of her uncles that worked there, and he passed away suddenly, just from cancer and and he was gone pretty swiftly. At a very young age, I think he passed away right around about like 57? 58? years old, very young. So I was
about 16 or 15 when he passed away. But pretty sadly, he was probably everybody’s favorite uncle at the time, you know. So it was very devastating. But the other uncles, they managed to live long. But I think lot of them were just ailing from either, just chronic colds and stuff like that, but nothing [major]. One had a cancer scare, but after small treatments, he didn’t have anything after that, so he reached [remission] after that. But other than that, I think the biggest thing with our relationship with them is that they were in it for the money. Most of them were [in it] for money. I mean, just like everybody across America, everybody’s got to work somewhere to make money. And they, they traveled a lot. Back and home from the reservation, a lot. Their homestead was mainly down on the reservation, so they’d be gone soon as Friday kicks in the clock — they’re off on the road back to the reservation. They’d be back like Sunday evenings or early [Monday] morning right before work starts.
Megan Vickery 09:32
Wow.
Conrad Yanito 09:34
They would always — Home to them, obviously, Native Americans think of home on a reservation as the great home of our history and our place of homesteading and stuff. So for them to leave outside the reservation, it was always tough, you know. And a lot of that was probably just the atmosphere of how the town is. If you don’t feel like you’re welcome, you don’t want to really go back, but I need to go back because I gotta make the money. You know, so I gotta suck it up and get up there and work and do what I gotta do to keep a roof over our family and whatever. I’m sure they had to, you know, use the money to make it that day, they had to make that sacrifice.
Megan Vickery 10:12
Yeah, I assume they all had families and kids back on the reservation?
Conrad Yanito 10:16
Yes, absolutely, yep, yep. So a lot of them were my cousins. We used to play a lot. We used to go visit them from time to time. The only hard part was having to trek across town, just being able to. But I was jealous of them, because they all lived down in the trailer court back at the time, and we used to go down there and if you go, “Oh, where’s so and so?” “Oh, he’s right across the street!” “Oh, Anthony’s
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over here!” and, “Jason’s over here!” And so it was always fun just to go there, because everybody kinda lived near each other. So those were the kids and stuff like that. So, yeah, and my mom used to always go down there some weekdays and just exchange recipes, or, you know, just communicate what’s going on back home and just catching up on the family, you know, stories and whatnot. We were close, we kind of stuck together a lot because, like I said, it wasn’t a whole [lot of] Native Americans in town at the time. I would say it was probably only a family of probably 12 or 10, that was it. So very — at a time it was small. But all the Native Americans kind of knew each other. We kind of stuck with ourselves and stayed close and I mentioned stuff like that. We’d always have, like, barbecues and have our Native cuisines. You know, sometimes it’s hard. It’s always — when you have a Native American feast, it’s, it’s generally a feast and it ain’t a small feast, it’s a feast. So when we have that in town, everyone would just get together and we’d just find a place — we’d go up the river somewhere, like in an old campgrounds — that are campgrounds today, back then, they weren’t campgrounds. It was just kind of — you drove through the brushes and parked underneath the cottonwood tree and started lighting a fire and started cooking. So anyway, so, yeah. So yeah, I did get to hang out with a lot of my uncle’s kids and their extended family as well.
Megan Vickery 12:13
Yeah, did your uncles tell stories or talk much about what it was like to work at Atlas?
Conrad Yanito 12:18
You know, yes and no. At the time, you understand, I was still young. So I was probably right around about 10 or 11 so I was mainly all about riding my bike and playing with my cousins and whatnot. So a lot of stories. I’m sure there were a lot of stories. I think maybe a lot about work and, you know, it’s a small town at the time too, as well. So I’m sure there was a lot of “this happened, that happened.” But again, I don’t know too much of what has transpired, as far as how the actual life was like — really like. But just by talking with my cousins at the time, there was always some [worry] because of the uranium that’s in the air, or, you know, those kind of circumstances that we didn’t know what it was. And to be honest, when they first came to work, when they heard the word uranium — you could be hurt, yeah, you can wear the proper PPE, but sometimes, if you don’t wear your proper PPE, you could be exposed to it. And lot of times, a lot of it was neglected, you know, but that’s just way some some job sites are, you know. Some things can be neglected and they may have had safety people, I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell you if they did. I’m sure if they did, I hope they did look after everybody there. As far as everything else with how they were, if they enjoyed it — if they did, if they didn’t — I don’t know. I would imagine they did, because they lived here to the full extent of [the Atlas] Mill site, so they were here for that long. So as soon as that closed down, a lot of them moved back to the reservation and just kind of closed up their doors here in town and headed back to reservation, moved back.
Megan Vickery 14:09
You kind of mentioned this already, but [for] people in your family, or even just in town in general, was there a general feeling of concern about working with uranium? Or was it similar to, you know, any kind of construction or that kind of work, that level of danger?
Conrad Yanito 14:34
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I asked my mother, I asked her how my grandpa was when it came to that situation. Of course, back in their 40s and 50s, or 50s and 60s, they didn’t really, you know, because I think there’s a language barrier that they couldn’t understand. Like my grandfather, he was not English fluent, but was in Navajo. So Navajo was his first language. So for them to communicate that type of information into dialect, into Navajo, was probably not accurate. So a lot of that was, “Okay well, why is this dirt glowing?” You know. “Oh, screw it, I’ll just pick it up with my hand, throw it in.” So those kind of things, I don’t know if they were taught the whole right PPE. I think, and more of, “Hey, I’m gonna watch this guy, how he does it, and watch him do it.” I think was more of a hand and eye seeing and just learning what the guy is doing in front of you. And I think a lot of it was that, and if he was good at what he was doing, I imagine that they moved him [to] different places. “Okay, he’s good with his hands, we probably oughta move him over here with this.” But concerns wise, my mom had always mentioned that grandma was always concerned about him coming home with his clothes that he wore at work. She’d always tell him, you know, because she had had a friend that recently died, I guess. Somewhere during one of those mining days, they lost him to exposure, very harsh exposure of some ore. He got sick from it, and then he was in the hospital for a long period of time, and then the doctors told him there was nothing much they can do with him. And I’m sure back then, it’s all about insurance and what you have, if you can be covered. But the Native Americans didn’t have a lot of it and didn’t understand a lot of that at the time. So when grandma had spoken with one of their – I believe it’s probably their neighbors, or something like that – they were mining and he was going through that situation. And I think Grandma told Grandpa, you know, “Make sure you take your clothes off, but you’re taking it off up over the hill. You’re not bringing it anywhere here,” you know. So, that was something that I remember hearing about and stuff like that. So, yeah, so anything tool wise, he left up on top of the hill. He would leave it at a certain place before he came home. LikeI said they were all — back then they were either on foot, or they’d get dropped off by their buddies, or they rode a horse. So if you’re coming on a horse, I’m sure you’d ride up to where you drop your stuff off. If you have a little tote box somewhere, you just drop all your clothes and your tools in and close it and ride home. Yeah, you know, then when you go to work, you stop by there and pick it all up and head back to work. So, so yeah, concerns? I’m sure there was. Grandma picked up on that. For sure.
Megan Vickery 17:24
What other memories or stories have you heard about your grandfather’s work?
Conrad Yanito 17:28
Um, you know, a lot of that. Again, as far as the details, the deeper details of how it was — a lot of it that grandma always… Like, I remember my mom was saying, my mother was saying that they used to travel with him sometimes, and they’d camp at the sites and camp at the mill sites and whatnot, and they would just go out and go hunting on it. There at the time, they’d just go wild hunting and, you know, make food and stuff like that. So they always would travel with Grandpa to some of these job sites. And my mom wasn’t born at the time. She just remembers that her older sisters would mention, “Yeah, we used to live up in town — or up in the woods called Cottonwood Canyon,” which is one of the mill sites there. And they’d talk about how they lived. They lived in little huts. And Grandma would make coffee every day, and then he’d take off and jump in with a bunch of guys. And they’d pack up wherever it is they’re going, and they’d just be, kind of — Grandma would be around and [it was] just kind of like being at home, but in a different place, you know. kind of having a home, small homestead, temporary
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homestead, out there. So, but other than that, [to go into any] more details, I’m not really sure. Grandpa and Grandma never really talked about it so much other than that. At one point near the end of his life there, he wanted to go back up to the Cottonwood. And we never did take him up there. I wish we would have. I wanted to explore where he went and see what he’s done, but we just never got a chance to. And to see where he went, where he lived, and tell his story, what it was like, so if we had known that — if I was having this type of conversation, I would definitely want to make that absolutely happen, you know? I mean, you know, the history of that is intriguing to me in some ways, just because, you know, it’s a way of life for a lot of people in this part of the western part of the country. So mining was very big.
Megan Vickery 19:30
Do you think they — you can answer both for your grandfather and then separately, for cousins [uncles]. But how involved do you think they were in understanding what that uranium was going towards or what is was going to be used for?
Conrad Yanito 19:50
As for Grandpa? I think he picked up on it. I think with their co-workers, a lot of them, I think I would imagine, because my grandfather didn’t pass away from cancer, he just passed away from natural causes. So I’d imagine that he picked up on what they were doing, and he protected himself from it, because otherwise, like, you know, I’ve lost a lot of my uncles to huge cancer as well. So, and that part there, I would imagine that he picked up on that and protected himself from a lot of that, from just conversating with his co-workers that are Navajos. “Hey, don’t do this. Don’t do that.” You know, “That thing is bad for you. It can give you some bad cough. It can give you some bad, you know, rash burns, those kind of things” I’m sure they mentioned stuff like that, you know. And PPE, I’m sure he probably wore that as much as he could. But as far as my cousins and them, I think they, they were pretty much at the time, I think at the Atlas Mill. I think they were pretty — I think they were trained. I would imagine they were trained, because it’s in the 80s at the time when I was growing up there. And so I’d imagine that lot of that was there, because obviously my father knew. Like one afternoon, my uncles came over to visit, and he [my father] came over in the company pickup from the mill site. And we happened to be outside, and my uncle was inside talking to my mom, and me and my dad were walking outside and I said, ” Hey, that looks a cool truck.” It was an old Ford. I can’t remember what year. I’m gonna say it’s probably late 60s pickup. It had a welder on the back of it. I remember walking up to it thinking, ” Oh –” and touching it and my father came up and said, “Hey don’t touch that.” You know, and I was like, “Why? It’s just this truck.” He goes, “Well, there’s stuff on there that can harm you.” And then from there on, I was curious, and that’s, you know, some of those things, exposure to elements out there, there was probably that as well. You know, how much exposure was brought up into the community itself, that the coworkers did probably drive some of their vehicles home. And they’re probably, I don’t know if they’re, you know, a lot of times you can get them tested with those — What do you call those things that you detect?
Megan Vickery 22:20
Geiger counters?
Conrad Yanito 22:20
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Yeah, geiger counters and stuff like that. So, yeah, so I don’t know if they’d done that or did that, but my father, was always just cautious about it all. You know, whether it has to go through or not. He was still cautious that, you know that’s been there. So more than likely, it may not be there, but it’s gonna be present at some point, you know. So yeah. Now, as far as my cousins and them, if they were around, their fathers that had vehicles lended to them or tools and them from the site, I don’t know. Because like I said we were young. We were 10 and 12, so at the time, we’re all about just hanging outside and playing and not worrying about what our parents were working with or anything like that.
So, now that you know, ever since this conversation and when you know and I met, I’ve always wondered a lot of things. But things like that come to mind, if that even was a thing that I didn’t know. Maybe we were playing with something we weren’t supposed to that came from the mill that we were playing with. So you never know. So, as far as concerns on that, Grandpa picked up on it, I think, because otherwise, I think his health would have deteriorated a little bit quicker if it wasn’t [for that]. Some of his friends, he mentioned that they all died from the cancer of that [radiation], from some of that. But a lot of that, they didn’t — I don’t think they actually knew if it was from the mine site or if it was actually from the downwind. From the nuclears that were just downwind from the actual sites of Nevada. So, so we don’t know if it was one of the other: that or this. So, I guess on that note, you can kind of see, well, you know, downwind from that, that means, well it’s just gonna blow this way. Oh, it’s just going right through Navajo Nation, right? So it’s, “Hey, we’re good,” you know? So I don’t know. I mean, I might be over shooting that one there, but it’s just that’s what we call it. Downwind. Sad as it is, you know, that we’re in a path of the danger zone that happened. I don’t know if it was the mill, a lot of it was the mill, or if it was the downwind from those testing sites.
Megan Vickery 24:28
Do you know if any of them ever got any compensation?
Conrad Yanito 24:32
My grandfather [John Shorty or Shordi in Navajo] was starting to ail towards a little bit of sight. They thought it was probably pertaining to uranium and whatnot, because he didn’t have diabetes until late, late, late. So we thought it was diabetes at the time, but then we found that it was probably part of the downwind section of that. So we tried getting some of the mill information from that as well to get compensation from that. But again, a lot of documents and records weren’t taken from him at the time. So a lot of that was, he was a ghost.
So when you’re a ghost, you don’t have any documentation saying that, “Hey, we can’t write a check out for you, because, you’re a ghost. Yeah, you said you worked there, but, you know, I need paperwork.” So the downwind, the downwind was a different story, because, you know, they just found the geographical maps of how they run. If you live within the range of where this is going, then you do get some of that, yep. So, but if you pass away, a lot of times, you’re more compensated to that as well, because there’s a lot of document work. So my, my paternal side of grandparents, they both passed away from cancer, and we got compensation through that from the downwind effects of that. Now, now my grandfather, on my father’s side, I don’t think he — I can’t remember if he worked in the mines or not. But again, Dad didn’t like talking about that either. So it’s kind of kind of sketchy there with him. But you know, whether it’s PSTD or, like, what is that?
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Megan Vickery 26:33
PTSD?
Conrad Yanito 26:35
PTSD, yeah, sorry. So yeah, it could be a lot of that too. So I don’t know. He didn’t want to talk about it, so we just kind of left it at that. So, but anyway.
Megan Vickery 26:23
That’s fair. What do you remember about being young in Moab at that time? Do you remember learning about uranium in school? What was it like in town? Tell me a little bit more about that.
Conrad Yanito 26:37
There wasn’t very much other than that. You know, if you live in Moab, you’re either working at one of these mine sites or your father is working at these mine sites — you were considered upper echelon of making some money. Your chain of love. You know, of making money-wise, I’m trying to find a word for that. But when you work at these mines, like Texas Gulf, Atlas, or any of these places, you know a lot of the times, that’s where a lot of the money came in to help the communities. You know baseball parks, or special events like that. So when your name is mentioned, “Oh, you’re so and so, and you work for that mine. Oh, you’re making some good money,” you know. And my father worked for Williams [Gas]. So as far as the growing up part of things, we were just, you know, it was fun growing up. I definitely think of a lot of the times growing up here in Moab when everything was not as complicated as it is today. It was all, “Hey, I’ll meet you here at 10 o’clock,” and you’re gonna meet that guy at 10 o’clock. Otherwise you’re not gonna be having all the fun, riding the bikes. Something like you see on Sandlot, the movie, that was kind of like our atmosphere, just hanging out as kids. We picked up guys on bikes, and we rode to this guy’s house, knocked on the door, and he came running out, and we took off and picked up another guy down the road. So it was my kind of life on that was pretty good. But of course, there’s some, you know, always. You’ve got some adversities every now and then, but that’s just part of growing up and being the little odd guy out, the black sheep of the community sometimes, but you know, so we’ve managed to adapt and learn. It’s just always a saying of “If you can’t beat them, join them,” in some ways, you know or better yourself by learning more on how to be, you know, a better person.
Megan Vickery 29:02
Would you tell me a little more about what that was like to be a black sheep?
Conrad Yanito 29:09
Well, minority. Everyone knows what minority means, and a lot of that minority back in the 80s was some rough times, sometimes meaning, you know, you tend to get bullied, or you tend to not be accepted in some places, and be the last one to be picked, or anything of that nature. As a kid, you’d be last to be picked on the team. You’d be last to be thought of, just a bunch of situations like that that you normally see in society today, or, you know, what you see on fictional movies and stuff like that. So a lot of that, sometimes I can relate with a lot of some of those stories, you know. But some of those are pretty harsh, yes, but mine was not something as harsh. There are some good people here in Moab.
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And a lot of them did turn around and actually lend a hand out and say, “Hey, you know, I’ll help you up.” You know, “Hey, do this, do that.” So a lot of that was with that concern.
Conrad Yanito 30:11
So and then Native Americans here in town at the time, growing up, we kind of stuck together. We kind of stuck to ourselves. And we’d kind of say, hey, lot of times we knew the native guy or a girl coming to town, like, “Who’s that? Let’s go invite her,” and say, “Hey, you know, if you need anything you know, let
us know. We can help out with whatever direction you want to go, teachers, whatever, those kind of things.” So a lot of that was those kind of things. So it was a little tough, but adversity was something that I probably wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for some of learning some of that and overcoming some of those situations and learning myself to better understand why it is that I was putting in that process to understand that I’m the black sheep. Well, I wanted to learn how I didn’t want to be the black sheep anymore. So I started learning, reading, understanding people’s way of life, people’s, you know, understanding what they mean to us from their point of view, and just try to make it, make them change their mind in some ways. You know, I was a very ambitious person. So that’s kind of type person I was, “Oh I’m gonna better myself, to make myself — to be known.” To say, “Hey, he’s he’s normal, too.” Not just because the color of my skin, you know.
Megan Vickery 31:30
Is that a perspective that you think you shared with your family members?
Conrad Yanito 31:34
And absolutely, yeah, it’s not just within the Native Americans, also with non-Native American families, you know. I understand when they get bullied. I understand when they see it, you know. And I let them know, hey, you know, you can overcome this. You know, it’s all about getting the right confidence, you
know, and the right words from you know, mentors to just understanding why it is that this is happening. And let them know, you know, there’s another side of this, you know, this is a little hump you’re in, just jump over it, and it’ll get better. A lot of times I tell them, “I promise you’ll get better.” That was kind of situation I think helped me, not just back then, but even today. You know that I understand that, hey, it’s going to be — the grass is greener on the other side as they say, you know. So, and that’s a way of, kind of just picture that. And then at the same time, I would go back and reach back to some of my people in the community. Help them, you know, say, “Hey, this is the direction that I went, and it might help you.” And give them some knowledge, whatever I learned from, you know, where I’m at today, to some of the ones that don’t understand or want to know. I’m the type of person, I would just go back and let them know. Say, “Hey, you know, try this. This will help you.” So, yeah, the minority part — the black sheep — it is true. It does happen. And I don’t think it just happened, just for Native Americans. I think it just happens in life in general, you know, and the biggest thing is just, just try to stay confident. And it’s always a tough world. So it’s never easy. It’s tough for everybody, even the rich, even the poor. Just tough for everybody.
Megan Vickery 33:18
So, did you ever hear anything about what that was like from your uncle’s perspective at work? Conrad Yanito 33:29
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You know, I really don’t. That’s probably a conversation I probably can get in deeper with my mom. But the sad part of that is a lot of my aunts had passed away as well, so I wouldn’t be able to. I think my mother and my aunts, my mom’s sister would probably have an understanding if I’d asked them, but I would imagine that there were some, because my mom was always protective of us when it came to that type of situation. So I would imagine there was an adult life at the time — that there was some, you know, situations where they protected us a few times. So there’s, you know, some instances in the past, at one time, where my mom told me, “Get out of-” — we were in a place where people were gathered, and she told us to get back in our trucks because this is probably not gonna be good. So we got back in the trucks, and I was so scared. And I remember looking at my sister, we were kind of just talking, and then next thing you know, I saw my mom and dad back in the truck, and they were fine, and I kind of felt better at the time. But in those kinds of situations, there are some scary moments, you know, so. But other than that, you know, with my cousins and them, they didn’t really talk much. We kind of really protected ourselves, like I said, like in Sandlot. Keep that in mind, Sandlot. But instead of the TV, instead of the movie, we were all Native Americans. We kind of all stuck together and did our own thing, and we kind of hung around, played our own sports. And as far as the minority, the hard part of that side is I don’t — I would imagine that there was. It had to be because my parents and my aunts and uncles were very protective of where we went, what places we went and what we said in public was also one of those things. “Hey, don’t say that, because we don’t want, you know, we don’t want any trouble.” That was always the word. We don’t want any trouble. Meaning that, you know, what you might say, somebody might hear and might not like. That’s what I gather from it, when my parents or my uncle would say that. Watch what you say. Okay, oh, what are we doing here then, you know? And once I figured that out, once I got older and I understood what that meant, and I thought, “Okay, so they’re pretty protective over us.” But at the time, like I said, when you’re kids, they’re protecting you because they want you to have your childhood, a good time. They don’t want you to think about all the garbage that’s going on that they’re fighting [for] us, to protect us from. And they did a good job of it, because I hardly remember any of that sometimes. And I love my parents for that, and I love my uncles for that, and my aunts for that, you know, just keeping that blindfold down for us, you know, while all that was happening, so I’m glad I didn’t get to see a lot of that, but I’m sure there was.
Megan Vickery 36:22
What kinds of places were you not allowed to go?
Conrad Yanito 36:25
It wasn’t so much allowed to go. It’s just the atmosphere when you walk into a building of such, you know, like a bowling alley, yeah, you know, like, do I belong here? People stare at you, like, “Okay, who these guys?” You know, they give you that dirty look. Or if you grab something off of this, “Hey, why are you grabbing that?” You know, “Oh look there are Navajos coming in!” You know, those kind of situations. Or if you went to an event, “oh, they’re just Navajos, they’re just gonna get drunk, you know, just let them be!” And we don’t have any beer, you know, all we have is a ice chest of cokes and Pepsi and whatnot, you know. So we were always who they always thought that they think that we are. But we were never that, in my opinion, because my parents never got drunk in front of us, never made a hassle, never made a scene of such, you know, so. But other than that, when you drove, even driving a vehicle. If you drive a nice vehicle, they kind of tell you, “Hey, you sure you should be driving a vehicle that looks like that?” I remember one day my parents dressed up a nice pickup. It’s an 85 Chevrolet
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pickup. One night, we went to the movies, and we got robbed. And they had made it nice just because, you know, my dad worked his butt off to put stuff on there after market — parts, grill, and headlights and whatnot. Back then it was worth a thing. And he did that because a lot of people in town did that. So he did that. Well one night with the movies came out, the truck was robbed. Every broken window. They
stole the stereo out of it and the CB. So, yeah, so we felt like we was targeted in that way. Targeting, I guess, is the word that you know we feel like happened a lot sometimes. You know whether you’re going into bowling, like I said. And so at that movie that night, that was kind of scary as a kid, you know, Mom’s just upset about the whole situation. Dad, of course, you know, I’m sure he was swearing, but, you know, Mom kept us away from all of that. Seeing the cops pull up and getting that information. And there was a couple things that we noticed in town that we thought, “Hey, that looks like ours,” you know, and we knew it was ours, but we’d call the cops, and they didn’t do anything about it, and just left it. So we just kind of left that be so, yeah, so those are those kind of, those types. This didn’t happen a lot, that was only one last time, and ever since then, we kind of protected ourselves more. So we started, you know, like I said, we started adapting. Well, how can we protect ourselves? Well, guess what? I guess we’re gonna get a guard dog. So we ended up having a dog. So it’s funny because sometimes — one night I remember after the theft of the pickup, it couldn’t have been, like, two or three months later, we were all sleeping in the truck. The horn just went off, just blaring. A lot of times that’s like our security of the car at the time. It was so sensitive, like, even if you close the door, sometimes that alarm would go off, or the horn go off. Well, when that went off, man, it just went off, and when we got there the doors were open. They pried the door open somehow. So that’s when we said, all right, now we’re getting a dog. Now they’re coming to our house. This theft is coming to our place, but there’s a nice 69 Camaro not far from us. It’s got a nice stereo system, and if they wanted they could pick on them. That guy always leaves his keys in his truck! Why not go take his truck? They’d always take ours. You know, they was always doing something [like that]. So, we end up getting a dog, a guard dog. And he was probably the best friend in the family. Yep, his name was Ranger. And he protected us. Every time he barked, you know, he was our alarm. You know, when he went off then something was going on, you know. So we’d peek out the window and turn on the lights and whatnot and see. So as far as all of that adversity, it’s, it’s, it has its moments. But there were a lot of good times too. It’s not always bad. There was a lot of good times. You know, some days Moab was a good time to live in at that era, you know, because these things [*holds up cell phone*] weren’t involved, you know, phones weren’t involved. You’re, you know — it was all about loyalty. It was all about promises, pinky swears, and all that. I mean, you were sworn to that, and you uphold it, and and you kept them. So, yeah, good times back then.
Megan Vickery 40:57
How have you seen Moab change since then?
Conrad Yanito 41:00
I’ve seen it quite a bit, definitely grown in the last few decades. It’s scary in some ways, but understandable, because it’s the way life [inhabits] that — because it’s the way Moab has stayed afloat, as far as economy-wise. So when the uranium business went down, you know, in came in tourism. And tourism was big with the whole Jeep Safari thing. Jeep Safari ended up being a big thing. It ended up being a really good outcome the first time. And then it just — years after that, people start crawling in more and more and more. And that’s when it came to be a light bulb, I think, for the community to say, “Hey, we can make money off these people coming in.” And then just kind of grew after that. And then
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people start holding other venues here and there. There’s probably a few, I just can’t remember what some of those venues were, but Jeep Safari was one of the biggest. And of course, later on, in the 90s, I think the car show came in. The Car Show came in and started lighting the town up again with that as well. And then the rodeos. The rodeos was also a big thing here in town. So I think that’s when I think that tourism kind of mainly took over and overshadowed a lot of that uranium side of business and such. And of course, you know, governments have a big part of the uranium business too, at a time too. So it depends on who the man at the capitol is, is the one who makes the decisions, and sometimes it closes, sometimes it opens back up, closes. So yeah, so there was all that kind of stuff. So Moab changed a lot in my lifetime. In a lot of ways, lot of ways, academically, just regular community wise. Yeah, people change. People’s faces change. You make new friends from different towns and places, people moving in from different places and such. So, yeah, so it’s still growing today. I mean, to this day, at this point, I mean, you know, you meet new people every day just like I met you. You know, people keep coming every time and make great people every time. So, yeah, so there’s been a lot of changes. Has it been for the best, for the good? I think it’s, um, it’s, it’s, you try to, you try to be staying positive about it. So you want to say, Yeah, I think it’s a great thing in a lot of ways. So otherwise, I think this town would be under if it wasn’t, you know. It’s sad to say, it’s kind of like something like Cisco, you know, you drive through Cisco and you see that town, that little — it was a different time, at the time, for that. But I’d hate to see Moab turn into something like that, you know. It’d be spooky in a way.
Megan Vickery 43:24
Do you remember the mill closing?
Conrad Yanito 43:42
Yes, I do, because it was sad, sad times, because all my cousins moved. All my relations moved. So it ended up being like, you know, my mom, and dad at the time, we lived in two — we lived in three different places. We started, we came — when we first moved to Moab, we lived in a small rental home that was right where Wendy’s is today. There used to be a home there. We lived off the main street right there, and we lived there probably for about a year, maybe a year and a half. And then Mom, Dad bought a singular modular home, and we ended up taking it to a home there, off the site there. We lived in a trailer park, and we lived there probably for 10 years, 12 years, something like that. And then we moved to another residential you know — it’s just all part of the economy. You make more money, you can better yourself. So, and that’s kind of where — we just kind of went with the flow, with all of that. So when the uranium slowed down, I noticed that a lot of my family members that, you know, cousins and whatnot, were moving. They’re starting to move. You know, some of them were real close, too. My cousins were almost considered like brothers. I don’t have a brother in my family. I’ve got sisters, so I was the only boy in the family. So having a brother that had to move was, you know, pretty hard, you know, for town. But I’m sure it was the same for Mom and Dad as far as having family in town. Like I said, we’d just have barbecues on some weekends, we’d all get together and we’d drive up the river and have a feast somewhere through and then that kind of all came to an abrupt end.
Conrad Yanito 45:14
So yeah, now how did it affect our family in such ways? As far as financially for them? I think it affected them quite a bit, because a lot of them had to hit the road to make more money again. They ended up transitioning from being at the mill to going down to be coal miners down there in the reservation, which
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is a little bit hard because down in Kayenta, down in Black Mesa area, it’s quite a drive. It’s nearly about two and a half hour drive. So round trip, that’s a four drive, plus whatever time of the day you work out there doing that. So I remember, I was seeing my uncle when they worked down there, just the look on their face, they looked burnt. They looked tired. You know, you can see it in their face that they were exhausted, so. And so a lot of times that was their transition point was that was changing from what they were doing in Moab locally, and they had everything near them. When you transition to a town like Bluff or the reservation, you don’t have all the resources, you know, like the grocery store, the post office, or whatever you know, back in time that they need. So having not had that, from what you did have for many years, to not having it down there, it was probably pretty, pretty hard. Just a big change. You know, it’s a big change of life there for them. So, I’d imagine it was pretty hard for them. So, yeah.
Megan Vickery 46:34
What did you notice about how the town took that change?
Conrad Yanito 46:39
Um, I think the biggest thing on that was the population changed a little bit. You know, it was, it was — we had, we used to have two schools, two elementary schools when I was growing up here, and then when that shut down, I think that took a lot of that population out of town, where they had to make it a singular elementary school. So they closed the one down and kept the one. You didn’t think much of it growing up at the time. But then as you get older, you start thinking about that like, wait a minute, we
must’ve had that many people to, you know, accommodate two elementary kids — schools — in all grades, from zero, from K to fifth grade and to fill up those schools. So yeah. So that was probably one of the biggest changes. And I think after that, a few years after that, I’m sure Moab had to adapt to, you know, figure out what’s next for Moab. And I think tourism was one of those things that they had to say, “Hey, this never goes away.” So we just, you know… So I would imagine that growing up, I did lose a lot of friends from the Atlas, mine — or mill, moving to different places and not seeing them again. So, yeah, so I lost some friends, and I noticed the impact there. And then, like I said, two elementary schools were huge, because your class size was always big when you got to the middle school. You met some kids you never met before until you got to the middle school. And that was always the fun part and it was scary at the same time. But you met some new faces, made some new friends and whatnot. So, yeah.
Megan Vickery 48:20
Was it slow for a long time before it felt like tourism really picked up? Or did it feel — [?]
Conrad Yanito 48:27
I would think it did. So for my family, my mom and dad, I don’t think it really affected them much, because they weren’t in the mining business part of work. Housekeeping was always housekeeping, that never stops. My dad worked for the natural gas at the time, so that was a different phase of — line of work. He was consistent there with that, so it didn’t really impact us. And in some ways, a lot of times, I think my uncles were probably jealous of him, that he had a job that was consistent, and that was very dependable. And that, you know, being in the mine business, you don’t know what the outcomes could be depending on what the market does with ore, or any of the, you know, the pricing in the market for that. So that took effect, a lot of that. And I think it’s still some today, today I think it’s still
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the same way. Like the copper mine, for instance. You know, I’ve heard about that a couple of times in my last, you know, 10 years, that goes up and down with workers there, because it all depends on the pricing of the copper. You know, if it’s great money, then they’ll hire more people; if they cut back on the pricing, what copper goes for, then they start laying off people. So, yeah, I think that a lot of that, I think Moab had its course there for a while. I bet there was, there was probably some slow time again. You gotta remember, like I said, I was, I was still in grade school at the time a lot of that was going on. So I didn’t really see a lot of it, other than a lot of — some of my friends that were good friends of mine moved. You know, so that was the only time that it was kind of sad, and it was kind of the situation there with that. So in town it seemed like it got a little smaller. Just, I remember that a little bit, just because I remember everybody, it seemed like, knew everybody. You know, real — I mean, just like, I mean, when you went to City Market, it was like, “Oh, you’re in it with that person because you know that person,” you know, so there was a lot of that. I remember that. And eventually, like I said, when tourism — they figured out tourism was a thing for Moab, new faces started coming in. And then, you know, you got excited when the town got excited. When the town got excited, you would’ve gotten excited because there’s a venue coming. And that was always the exciting part, seeing the excitement from that, and seeing what it does to Moab. And seeing that, what it does to Moab, and seeing that just makes you proud of, you know, being part of the community and seeing that, you know what I mean, so, yeah, yeah.
Megan Vickery 50:58
How have you seen the Native community change over time?
Conrad Yanito 51:03
After uranium mines closed down, or the mills and such closed down, it dwindled a little bit. Like I said, it came down to a few of them stayed here, I would say, probably about maybe just 1% of them stayed and tried to make it happen. You know, of course, their families, you know, a lot of them were single parents, and a lot of them were just trying to get out of somewhere so they can actually work. They didn’t care if it was housekeeping or any such work, or even being a bagger at a grocery store or something of that sort. So later on, I would say, like maybe the late 80s, and you start seeing a lot of them start to come to move back. Some of them start working for that Potash area too. There was probably about — at a time in about the 90s, I believe there was, I want to say for four or five families, I believe that were working there at the time. And one of them was actually my uncle, and he worked out for a little bit, and then he transitioned out of there. He ended up being — ended up working for the National Park Service. So he ended up working there for a while. So Moab ended up, you know, gaining back some Native Americans, and also the Latino part of the section too. They started coming back and started making a living through a lot of it was housekeeping, maintenance, or hotel maintenance, and then other such jobs as such. You know, like concrete and those kind of things. So there was a lot of small industrial jobs that they could come back to and, you know, work around and make it happen.
Megan Vickery 52:36
How do you think that community, like the way that you fit into the greater Moab community, has changed? Or how is that?
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Conrad Yanito 52:54
Um, it depends on what era you’re in.
Megan Vickery 52:56
Like now? How do you think it is now?
Conrad Yanito 52:59
How do I think now? It depends, I think. Everyone has their own opinion in Moab, yeah. I mean, I have mine, if you want my opinion. I think, I think in some ways, Moab’s always gonna be Moab. In a lot of ways, my heart is always in Moab. You know, I grew up here in Moab in the 80s and the 90s. And I think, in my opinion, a lot of times those were the best times of Moab. If you lived in Moab in those eras, of those decades, then you had some good experience in Moab. You had some — a lot of memorable cool moments. Now today, you know, there’s a lot of — you know, we’re in a world of social media. We’re in a world of technology, which nowadays it’s in a world of high politics now. It’s sad, but at the same time, Moab’s adapting, I think Moab’s learning. I think Moab is trying to figure it out, what’s going on. And a lot of my generation of people, friends and family, they’re figuring it out, and they’re just trying to adapt and trying to hang on as long as they can and make the best fit right now. The direction its going, I hope it continues to be what Moab means. You know, Moab is a rural town. When you say rural town, you think of everybody knows everybody, everybody helps one another. Everybody reaches out when a situation happens, or an event happens, or even a birthday party for that matter. Everybody’s going to come and help out when they can. So if Moab can continue to do that and learn that, I think Moab will still be Moab, and I think they’ll just kind of adapt with what the world’s given to Moab and try to make it better. But more importantly, we need more rain. Other than that in Moab, otherwise for, I think, for the community, for the new generations that are coming, I think, I hope they see Moab like the way I’ve seen it. And they can try to keep it the way it is. And taking a look back at some of the history of some of our generation, or even generation before me, what Moab was about and keep that as part of their memory of what it is today, or it can be today. I think Moab would be in good shape.
Megan Vickery 55:34
Okay, what do you think about the UMTRA project, and what that site might turn into?
Conrad Yanito 55:43
Well, personally, on that one, I stay away from that site because, you know, of course, they call it the cleanup, uranium cleanup, you know. It’s, it’s one of those things that growing up — like I said, when I grew up, you were mentored to be told uranium as cancerous. You were mentored, and [it was] put in
your head that uranium is this and it’s harmful to your health. So my opinion down that note is, you know, it can go airborne. Sometimes that stuff can go over airborne. So do you pick up every grain of dirt you can find? You know, I doubt they can, but that’s just my opinion. How do I feel about it? Personally, I wouldn’t go to site there. I even though, if there’s a park that they’re planning on putting there, or whatever, they can plan to build buildings or apartments, whatever. But I just still have that sense of feeling, well, you know, what was to me is still there, you know. So I just feel like, you know, when not long ago, my kid wanted to play miniature golf down there, and I told him, “I don’t think that’s a great idea.” So, those kind of things like that, you know, I’m still, understand that some of that — but nowadays, kids today, they research for themselves what those mean and how that works, you know,
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so. But I think that the teachings that are, that were then, than they are today, are totally different. I know that a lot of that is — part of that is adapting. They have adapted because it’s new information, it’s new reports, it’s new discoveries, it’s new testings and all that kind of stuff, and little more documentation on how it really is, right. But for me, I’m old school, just like if you were old school 20 years from now, “Well we did it this way and I don’t want to go back to doing that.” You know what I mean? It’s going to be here and it’s going to be here [gesturing] so, and that’s how it is for me. So whatever happens there, I really doubt I’ll put a foot on there. I really doubt it, just because that’s how I grew up, and I’ve seen families taken away from me and my family because of uranium and cancer. If it was even from the uranium, because, like I said, there’s not really much documentation. It could be from the downwind, which is also made from uranium. So there you go.
Megan Vickery 58:13
So is there anything you hope to see happen there, or wish had happened to that site?
Conrad Yanito 58:23
Now don’t get me wrong on that part, in a way, because I get it. I understand the process of generation — of industrial movement and uranium mining, gold mining, silver mining, nickel, whatever, any type of mining. I understand that it’s an element that we had to have to make things. I get that. It’s just we are
still in that world today. We still do things that we find that we can make money, like now we’re in technology. Some of that stuff is made from some certain type of metal nowadays, titanium, and some other metals I can’t even pronounce. I never heard it before. So where do they get that? Somebody has to go dig it up. So we still kind of have a little bit of that. So how I feel about that is, you know, it came to be what it was. It’s an American time. It’s a part of American history. There’s a lot of things, even before mining, that they were doing back in the day that was just as harsh as that, you know? So I can’t really take away a lot from what has [been] done. I think a lot of it is, it wouldn’t be Moab, and my parents wouldn’t be who they are, my grandparents wouldn’t be who they are, if it wasn’t part of that — that’s part of their lives. And that’s why I’m sitting here telling you these stories, because it was part of their lives. And I’m grateful that you know they were in my lives, and they’re still my lives. So in all of that matter, I mean, I think to me, it’s just yes, there’s probably some circumstances that probably could have been different. But, you know, we’ve learned to grow. We’ve learned to understand. We’ve learned people that — [we] understand what human beings mean to other human beings, as for their safety nowadays. So now my line of work, that’s pretty much how it is. Everybody looks one after another, whether you’re stepping on gravel and it’s loose. Back in the 50s and 60s, they don’t care. You fell, they laughed. You know nowadays, “Hey, watch where you step. You know you could hurt yourself, twist an ankle, hurt your back.” Back then, maybe they were tougher. I don’t know but they could handle it back then, probably. So I know my grandpa, he was a tough, tough son of a gun, my grandpa was. He was a wrangler. I can’t tell you how many times he fell off a horse, and he still got up and hung in there. So, yeah, that’s how I feel about uranium in the mill sites. It’s part of history, and it’s American history. A lot of people probably could say that, that they wouldn’t be who they are if it wasn’t for their fathers, grandparents, mothers, aunts, working at those sites, making a living. We all had to do what we had to do. My mom had to be a housekeeper. She didn’t like being a housekeeper, but she had to do it to make a living, you know. So, yeah, so it was those kinds of things like that. I think that it was good for — at the time — it was good for the community, because it brought a lot of financial stature for the town. It brought a lot of events. It was good, just good, all in general for the town. It was, it was a revenue. It
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was a revenue resource. I think a lot of Moab wouldn’t be Moab if it wasn’t for a lot of that, what happened in the 50s. Yeah, you know and here we are today. Now we got history, and now we got stories. You know, it’s sad, but I can tell you a lot of that is those men and women that worked in those mines were very, very, very tough. They were very solid human beings. They’re, they’re nothing, but what we are today, I guarantee that much, because they were doing some rugged things that we have easy equipment to do now, that can do those [things]. You know, whether you’re pushing a railroad cart and nowadays we have mini ex[cavator]s. We have little small skidsters and those such things. So back then, you know, I definitely respect those families and men and women that worked in the mines and the mills for sure. So a lot of sacrifice, but they had to do what they had to do for family, and I give them a lot of respect for that.
Megan Vickery 1:02:56
Okay, I think this is my second to last one. But do you have any thoughts on reopening of uranium mines?
Conrad Yanito 1:03:09
So this last one — I just had a discussion with my cousins back on the reservation, because they started opening up the coal mines down on the reservations. And they’re talking about the mining and getting a coal mine started. So my opinion to that is, you know, I’m for it in some ways, because right now on the
reservation, I’m just talking — this is on the reservation general, but I can’t really speak for all of the communities in other places that have coal mine sites or any type of mill or mining sites that they were told that “You’re okay to do this now.” Now in the reservation part of it, you have to understand, we’re still a ways behind on resources down there. We’re still behind on a lot of educational needs down there. We’re still a poverty community down there in a lot of places on the reservation as a country, as a nation, down there. So I think that the mine helps us, because it’s, again, what did I say about Moab earlier? Moab wouldn’t be Moab probably, without the mines. It would be — like right now, it’s a beautiful town. It’s heavily populated. And I think a lot of that can help a lot of that, because some of that, if they do how they’re supposed to do, they can put the money back into its community. Make gas stations, build hospitals, build a police station, a police department, a firehouse for firefighters and such. So, yeah, they don’t have a lot of that. Where my parents live, you’re two hours each way for emergency vehicles to come to your place. Two hours. If you’re lucky. Some days they’ll say, “Oh, we got everybody all out. So you’re going to be four or five hours before they can come over.” By the time you show up. I’m already over my family’s death. Thanks for — you know, I’m good now he’s inside, or go get him. Thanks. You know, you’re late. So those resources, I think, would help. I don’t know a lot about the Navajo Nation government. In some ways, there’s always stories you read on it. Of course, you can read up on it, but at this point, you don’t know it until you actually live down there to see some of that stuff. So I can’t really be too judgmental on that for right now, you know. But other than how I feel about uranium possibly coming in and coming back, I don’t know, but I’m not a full 100%. Because… I don’t know, that’s a tough question in a way. I’m for green as well as I am for the resource. If it’s for a positive thing, then I understand, like, back then the type of metal that we get today, we used to get it, you know, by hand. Now today, we can probably usually get it with machineries and whatnot. But still, I don’t know, that’s kind of a tough question. I would have to think a little bit. I could say one then in about an hour, I could feel differently about it again. But if… I would leave it. I would leave what happened in the past, in the past. Leave with mines closed. When disaster happens in some of those places, it’s sad. Whether
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it’s chemically induced, from airborne, or a catastrophe, like a cave in, you know, those kinds of things like that. So, yeah, so I don’t know, you got me on that one so, but for right now, I’m going to say I probably wouldn’t be for it. Because I think we have a lot of other ways we can bring revenue and resources back to a community such as the Navajo Nation than mining all the time, you know, or mining of that such. Because, I mean, we adapt to the world, and a lot of it’s not mining anymore, and a lot of it is, you know, just industrial buildings, like making things on the reservations. You know, we don’t have a lot of utility resources. That’s something we can be, is a power company there, or a water treatment plant place, you know, because there’s not a lot of plumbing on the reservation still today. A lot of them still don’t have indoor plumbing. And I mean, I’m talking, we’re in 2025. A lot of them still live in hogans with no plumbing. Restroom has to be moved when it gets full every now and then. I’m sure they’re running out of spots. I’m sure that that house is getting pushed way outside of their — whatever their property line is at now, because they’re ain’t no more place to set that thing anymore. It keeps moving around. So, yeah, so there’s that, and then the water quality is not like it used to be. We used to get water back on the reservation through a windmill. And nowadays, who knows what they put in the water in the ground anymore. You know there’s — you hear the term fracking. You hear the terms of oil drilling and whatnot. There’s a lot of that going on down there. So, you know, nowadays you just don’t trust it, you know, because not a lot of people test down there on the reservation for quality water, water quality.
Conrad Yanito 1:08:53
So I hope that you know, Navajo Nation decides to do something other than mining sometimes, or hopefully, if they can find another type of resource to bring to the nation, I think it’d be great. But for now, that’s kind of what they’re trying to push back into, which is, I don’t know, I’d like to see what it does to the, you know, communities around there. Once, if, it does open up again. So, and I don’t even know what has. I know they tore down a couple of power plants. They tore down a power plant in Page, and they tore one, I think, up in Farmington area. And a lot of the Navajos, Native Americans, in the area — and non natives — worked at those two sites. A lot. And they shut them down so and a lot of them end up, you know, either shorten their lives from either alcoholism or drugs or, who knows, and all of them moved, you know, and tried to make a living elsewhere. But if you didn’t, if you don’t know how it is out there before you go, it’s tough, you know. Especially on a reservation where you don’t, you know, have to pay for a lot of things on places like that. You don’t pay a lot of taxes, you don’t have property taxes, you don’t have what we have today, outside the reservation. So for them, it’s a big reality check if you move off the rez to, you know, a place like Moab especially. And so, yeah, so it’s tough for them down there, but I hope Navajo Nation gets smart and [they] figure out a good resource for themselves down there.
Megan Vickery 1:09:16
Just have to wait and see.
Conrad Yanito 1:10:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Megan Vickery 1:10:34
All right, well, are there any things that you feel like you didn’t get a chance to say? Any stories you brought with you that you want to share that you haven’t yet?
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Conrad Yanito 1:10:43
No, I think I pretty much covered everything other than you know that I’m appreciative. You know, my grandfather worked for the mining as he did, and my uncles, because they were American men. They had to do what they had to do to keep their family, to survive and stay afloat. And otherwise we call them today as ‘blue collars.’ So my family doing that, my dad, grandfather, uncles, you know, American men, just like everywhere else in the nation, here in the United States, blue collar is a term that I really strongly hold by because I feel like that if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be a lot of places we are today, you know. But other than that, you know, my family and them, we are very proud people from where we’re from, on the Navajo Nation. Regardless of the story I told, the adversity that we had to overcome in our early lives. But we’re grateful for hanging in there. We’re grateful that, you know, Moab has accepted us, and that the community of Moab is far better than what it was probably over, you know, 50 years ago. At the same time, I’m happy, and I think the direction Moab is going, with the community of the Native people and the Latino people and Hispanic people. I think it’s a positive direction, you know, for all ethnicity. Moab’s a great town. A lot of people don’t like it, but, you know, as always, it’s a tough town to live in, but it’s always home to me.My first home, but then the reservation is also home too. So, yeah. So, two homes, yeah.
Megan Vickery 1:12:42
All right. Well, thank you for sharing with me today. I appreciate it. Appreciate hearing all your stories and hearing about time in Moab.
Conrad Yanito 1:12:51
Yeah, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak a little bit now. A lot of that, probably, I would love for them to come to speak for us sometime, and speak for how it really was with uranium and all that. You know, a lot of it is just kind of — it must have been hard, because they don’t like talking a lot about that. So a lot of that was probably very difficult. It’s just some of those kind of situations, I think, for them, but I’m grateful for them again, like I said. So I’m going to reset — I’m talking to myself about that again, but thank you again for the opportunity to speak before my family and the Navajo Nation of Moab. Thank you.
Megan Vickery 1:13:33
Of course.
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