Hidden in the mountains of northern New Mexico lies Blue Lake, or Ba Whyea, an ancient sacred site for the Taos Pueblo community. After the U.S. government appropriated Blue Lake and the surrounding area and placed it under the control of the Forest Service, the ensuing battles for Blue Lake came to epitomize Native Americans’ struggle for religious freedom and protection of sacred land.
A statement issued by the Taos Pueblo during their fight to regain parts of their homeland proclaimed: “The story of my people and the story of this place are one single story. No man can think of us without also thinking of this place. We are always joined together.” After 64 years of protest, appeal, and lobbying by Taos leaders and their supporters, Blue Lake was restored to the Pueblo in 1970.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, American fears of internal communists. The people were afraid of what was going to happenin the future and were deployed by anti-Communists in the decade after World War II had a trial run in the late 1930s. There was domestic support for his Cold War foreign policy.
