Code Talker

Ned Begay is Navajo, and the Navajos have experienced exile as well as physical and cultural displacement in the United States, as exemplified by the Long Walk, which forced them to abandon their original sacred home. The idea of a Navajo reservation represents a forceful curtailment of their homeland. Then, after the Navajo people’s territory is restricted, they’re made to abandon their culture and language through Indigenous boarding schools. The US government tries to alienate Indigenous American children from their customs, religion, and culture, requiring the mission school students to conform to white American aesthetics and to learn English. Children who lapse back into their native language are punished.

When World War Two breaks out, the Navajo men who try to enlist in the military are initially turned away; even when they try to support the country that stripped them of land and culture, they’re prohibited from doing so. They’re left in a sort of limbo where they are not regarded or treated as American citizens, and yet it’s unacceptable for them to be Indigenous American. As Ned reflects, “It was no good to speak Navajo or be Navajo. Everything about us that was Indian had to be forgotten” (18).