NUCLEAR-FREE FUTURE AWARDS
Tina Cordova, USA
In 2005, she and the late Fred Tyler founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC) to recognize those residents who experienced the fallout of the first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer’s Trinity, in southern New Mexico in 1945, but were not warned. As a sixth-generation indigenous/Hispanic resident who grew up in Tularosa, some 75 kilometers from the blast, she herself has conquered thyroid cancer. To date, the approximately 40,000 people, primarily Hispanics and Apaches, and their descendants have not been recognized as downwinders and thus exempt from compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA, a 1990 law). After years of advocating by activists, the US Senate amended in July 2023 RECA to include downwinders from Tularosa Basin and area; the amendment still needs to pass the House of Representatives. Tina, a biology and chemistry major, and her team will not give up until TBDC’s mission is accomplished.
read more about her engagement:
July 30, 2023 – What ‘Oppenheimer’ Doesn’t Tell You About the Trinity Test
December 8, 2023 – Senators call removal of RECA from NDAA as ‘major betrayal’ and ‘injustice’
December 11, 2023 – STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF TRINITY TEST DOWNWINDERS by Most Reverend John C. Wester Archbishop of Santa Fe
