Abstract
New Mexico is the birthplace of nuclear weapons, and the site of the first nuclear bomb detonation on earth – the ‘Trinity Test.’ The state's ‘cradle-to-grave' nuclear complex – from uranium mining, to bomb development, testing, and nuclear waste storage – has caused profound and lasting negative health, environmental, and social impacts on New Mexico communities. 80 years after the Trinity Test, a decades-long fight for justice has resulted in a win for some affected New Mexico communities. Among others, the Trinity Downwinders, unwitting victims of radioactive fallout from the blast, are now entitled to payments under the ‘Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA)’ - a nuclear harm reparations programme. Downwinder and grassroots activist Tina Cordova will reflect on her experience fighting for her community which has suffered serious and multi-generational consequences of nuclear harm.
Speaker
Tina Cordova is a seventh generation native New Mexican from Tularosa. She has an MSc from New Mexico Highlands University and together with her partner, runs a local roofing company. Tina is also a cancer survivor; she is the fourth generation in her family to have had cancer since 1945, when the Trinity Test blanketed the area her family lived with radioactive fallout. Her niece, age 23, was also recently diagnosed, representing the fifth generation to have cancer in her family.
In 2005, Tina co-founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) whose mission is to bring attention and justice for the negative health effects suffered by the unknowing, unwilling, uncompensated, innocent victims of the first nuclear blast that took place at the Trinity site in South Central New Mexico. Tina has testified before Congress, lectured widely, and won numerous awards for her work.
Details
Date : Tuesday, 11 November 2025,
Time : 5pm CET
Place: Online only
Registration: To attend this lecture, register here.
Live stream link: To join online click this link and enter the passcode ‘5xV2UM3v‘ on the day of the event.
The REPAIR lectures
The REPAIR lectures are an interdisciplinary lecture series on contemporary reparations demands and policies around the globe. They are given by leading reparations experts and investigate how reparations claims and policies come about, how they play out from a political, economic and moral perspective, and what they may teach us about politics and economics today. The lectures are hosted by the REPAIR project, based at the Anthropology Department of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). They are co-sponsored by the UvA’s Amsterdam Centre for Conflict Studies (ACCS).