AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB, or: Looking for reflections in the toxic field of plenty is a cinematic exploration of the Salton Sea— the largest lake in California, which is on the verge of ecological collapse— and the resilient communities struggling to survive within an increasingly dystopian ecosystem.
The film weaves together intersecting narratives, including the nation's highest asthma rates among children, the haunting memories of Native American tribal genocide, the echoes of military atomic bomb tests during the Manhattan Project, massive monocultural farming culminating in cataclysmic fish and bird die-offs, and the exploitation of immigrant laborers, to illuminate this idiosyncratic region.
Despite the larger area's agricultural abundance, the water level of the Sea has fallen by a good half a meter in just four years. With a maximum depth of ten meters, a full dry out appears imminent. The Salton Sea is also the site where hundreds of practice bombs were tested in the final phases of World War II leading into the Cold War. Starting in Utah, the film begins with a tour of the Museum of Nuclear Science & History to illustrate the connection between America's nuclear ambitions and the harm experienced by contemporary residents of California's Imperial Valley, as evidenced by the rapid decline of the environs surrounding the Sea. In a ceaseless quest for atomic supremacy, the U.S. poisoned a large swatch of itself, and yet the military maintains a continued presence in the area to this day.
This ticking environmental death trap is situated within the field of
plenty found in the greater Central Valley. Beyond the toxic waters, the
agricultural abundance is engendered by undocumented laborers who have
settled in the reservation of the Torres-Martinez Desert
Cahuilla. While tribal sovereignty shields the workers from federal immigration enforcement, they are subject to the toxic dusts that blows across this agricultural empire from the ground exposed by the Sea's receding waters. The Native stewards of this land recall memories of a thriving ecosystem and the healing properties of the plants that used to grow amidst a land now populated by salty bushes and chemical pollution.
Delving into the questions of historicity, AMONG THE PALMS THE BOMB juxtaposes the claims of those who have traditionally held power to shape history with the voices of communities whose stories have been systematically erased over time. The film thus highlights the fluidity of a national narrative made up of intersecting interests at a time of resurgent nuclear rhetoric and ongoing attempts to whitewash American history.
FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT: "The film's overarching mission is to ignite a collective awareness of the ongoing environmental and socio-political catastrophe that has remained concealed for years. This silence, perpetuated by society's indifference to marginalized communities is contested by the enduring resonance of untold stories. From Native tribes to undocumented workers to a dying body of water, their stories, and their land, are calling for our reaction."
— Luxas Marxt
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