Rosario Martinez Fiorillo grew up in northern New Mexico during the Manhattan Project. Her ancestors were Hispano homesteaders who built the Romero Cabin, an important pre-Manhattan Project structure at Los Alamos.
Martinez Fiorillo recalls an Army convoy passing by her house in the village of Guachupangue before the Trinity Test. She is knowledgeable about the history of the Romero Cabin and the Hispano homesteaders who were evicted by the U.S. government to make way for the Manhattan Project.
Later in life, Martinez Fiorillo worked as a bilingual education teacher in California and New Mexico.