US EPA

8802624 

Journal Article 

Happy Cly and the Unhappy History of Uranium Mining on the Navajo Reservation 

Weisiger, M 

2011 

Yes 

Environmental History
ISSN: 1084-5453
EISSN: 1996-2004 

17 

1 

147-159 

English 

10.1093/envhis/emr146 

Marsha Weisiger reviews the documentary film, 'The Return of Navajo Boy,' directed and co-produced by the independent filmmaker Jeff Spitz and first broadcast on PBS in 2000. That film, written and directed by the elder Kennedy's mentor, Rex Fleming, and starring the Cly family, coupled a six-minute-long ethnographic scene of family life herding sheep; caring for children; fashioning hair into the traditional bun; carding, spinning, and weaving wool with a fabulous tale. At its core, though, this is a story about environmental justice. The Return of Navajo Boy confronts why the two-year-old John Wayne was taken away, and it does so on the Cly family's terms. The Return of Navajo Boy offers a glimpse of Harry Goulding, who promoted the uranium boom in the valley and thereby transformed the lives of the Dine who lived there, but other images that do not appear in the film are more revealing.