Megan Vickery 17:41
Right. When did people and how did people in your community first start to understand what was happening there?

Teracita Keyanna 17:50
It was maybe about 2005 when things started to really get rolling. I believe that’s when. I cannot remember exactly when it was but that’s when they did the Church Rock Uranium Monitoring Project — that’s called the CRUMP project — and the chapter of Church Rock decided to host the Southwest Research Information Center to do that Church Rock Uranium Monitoring Project. And that’s when my aunt Edith [Hood] and my Uncle Larry King decided to go and see what it was about. And then that’s where they learned, because they got to walk along the road to home and noticed that the meters were just getting a little bit higher the closer and closer they got to home. And so that’s how a lot of it started. And then in 2006 I believe, or 2007, is when we became a grassroots organization, because nobody was listening to our community as private citizens, we had to become an actual organization in order to get our foot into some of these buildings.

Megan Vickery 19:11
Yeah, and that CRUMP project was in response to the [1979 Church Rock United Nuclear Corporation uranium mill] spill?

Teracita Keyanna 19:18
I believe so, because that’s when — it was started by the gentleman, Chris Shuey, who was actually there, like the day after the ’79 spill. And him and his partner, Paul Robinson, had taken pictures of the area, and they, they have documentation of what, what they saw, and so I believe that was the catalyst of the project, yeah.

Megan Vickery 19:52
And even then, it took 20 years?

Teracita Keyanna 19:54
Yeah, even then, yeah. It’s, it’s been taking a long time.

Megan Vickery 19:58
So how — tell me about that early organizing process within your community.

Teracita Keyanna 20:06
Honestly, I wasn’t, I wasn’t really part of it at first. My uncle was kind of in charge of it, and he made kind of like a President, Vice President, Secretary, kind of thing for his generation. And then he tried to get people in my generation to do our own where we were at the same meetings, doing the same thing, but kind of like had the leadership roles and any kind of work roles spread out through all six of us. And we were trying to do one for the next generation, but it was a lot of kids, so it was really, it was really hard to get any kind of work done with them. So it was, it was mostly the six of us who would try to work together. And then eventually it changed, because it was harder to do two, I guess, two leadership type of — it was just always harder, because you have one generation here who has this whole thought process that they grew up with that they were kind of thrown into because of boarding school and things like that. So things were just a little different and more rigorous, I guess, and then, versus, public school and people kind of having a little bit more freedom and things like that. And so it was kind of hard to have those two dynamics. And so eventually we just cut the younger generation out and just stuck with the older people. But then again, I’m part of the older people now, and so it’s, you know, it’s still honestly, it just depends on, I guess, your own free will and your own decision on what you want for your community. And so for me, it was like, I feel like I need to do this and… I guess I call it destiny, because it was just something that my grandmother kind of just told me it needed to happen. We need to continue fighting for our community. We need to continue fighting for Mother Earth. We need to be there, and we need to continue it. And so I sometimes feel like I was destined to do it because, like nobody else really wants to do it because it’s hard. I mean, if you honestly, if you don’t have the capacity to listen to these types of stories and move forward with it with some type of idea on how to move forward, you really can’t. It’s really tough. And so I feel like you have to have that strong will, but also that passion for your own community, to be able to do the things that me and my aunts are doing now. So that’s kind of how I ended up where I am now. I mean, it’s a lot sometimes, but because of it, you know, I have been, some people call it blessed, to be able to see these different places. You know, I’ve gotten to go to Hawaii because I helped write a paper. And I’ve been to Japan because we were invited and the Japanese community wanted to see, you know that very beginning footprints of the nuclear industry, and they knew that our community wasn’t part of the making of the bomb, but we were more — our role in the nuclear industry was energy and so they understood those different dynamics. And in some cases, a lot of people will put in that hatred and race into it. And that’s kind of just like how I’ve never really wanted to put it, I guess, but that’s something some people will actually put into your head. And that wasn’t the case. You know, when I got to Japan, there was a little bit of culture shock, but it was like these people live in harmony with the land. They’re so clean, they’re so polite, they’re — And it’s something that our culture was very, very in tune with, before colonization. And so, you know, then there became the point of capitalism and things like that, and those type of thoughts kind of integrated into our mindsets. And so if you’re weak minded, and you get to that point where it’s easy for you to just connect those dots, then it’s easy for you to see that type of hatred and things like that. But if you’re more in tune with Mother Nature and wanting to grow in that way, then you kind of don’t see it, and you kind of have that respect, that mutual respect, of their culture and your culture, and how almost in sync they are. So that was something that was exciting to see, because I was like, okay. And me being the kid I was on the rez, you know, dirty, snotty little kid that was playing out in the dirt and having a blast, I would have never thought that I’d be in Japan or I’d be in Hawaii. So that was kind of like an exciting thing for me to witness for myself. Was like, wow, I never, I don’t think I ever would have really thought of it. And, you know, there I was in Japan.