Joseph Bruchac’s Code Talker is a fictionalized account of a group of Navajo marines who fought in World War II with a top-secret mission: using the Navajo language to transmit crucial information during battle in the South Pacific. Through a character named Ned Begay, a Navajo man who is telling his grandchildren his experiences, Bruchac conveys both the shame and triumph such marines encountered throughout their lives because of their Navajo identity. By contrasting Ned’s repressed childhood with his wartime heroism, Bruchac argues that although one’s cultural roots might be devalued in certain contexts, a person should never give up their identity (and their language in particular) because even the most denigrated and marginalized members of society are worthwhile and highly valuable.
Throughout his childhood and youth, Ned is forced by the majority culture to try to devalue and forget his Navajo identity. When Ned first arrives at the mission school (a boarding school where Navajo children are taught to assimilate into white culture), he and the other young Navajo children formally greet one another as they’ve been taught to do at home, identifying the clans from which they’re descended and figuring out how they are all related. “[D]espite the fact that some of those other children spoke our sacred language differently, what we were doing made me feel happier and more peaceful. We were doing things as our elders had taught us. We were putting ourselves in balance.” In the unfamiliar (and, it turns out, hostile) environment of the mission school, the greeting ritual reorients Ned’s world, however briefly, to the way it should be—it helps him and the other children remember who they are.
However, it isn’t long before the Navajo children lose “balance” again. The school’s white staff tries to eliminate everything about the children that’s specific to Navajo culture: "‘Navajo is no good, of no use at all!’ Principal O'Sullivan shouted at us every day. ‘Only English will help you get ahead in this world!’ […] It was no good to speak Navajo or be Navajo. Everything about us that was Indian had to be forgotten.” Ned is taught that his very identity must be forgotten because it is allegedly useless to the larger world.
Over his years in the mission school, Ned excels because of his thirst for learning and his compliant demeanor. However, the repressive atmosphere and unjust punishments take their toll on him, too. After being singled out for speaking just a word of Navajo, he remembers “how that dunce cap felt and how foolish I must have looked to everyone […] I was both sad and angry. Would the bilagáanaas [white people] never respect me because I was a Navajo? Did I really have to give up everything Navajo to succeed in the modern world?” Even though Ned has earned a tiny bit of respect through his academic gifts, he, too, has absorbed his white teachers’ message that everything distinctly Navajo about him must be forgotten if he is to be considered valuable by the larger world. However, when the Pearl Harbor attack occurs, things begin to change for Ned.
During World War II, Ned and other Navajos gain respect—both self-respect and outsiders’ respect—for remembering rather than rejecting their Navajo identity. After America enters the war in the South Pacific, a call is put out for Navajos specifically. When Ned is accepted into the Marines, he learns that the Navajo language has been chosen for use in a top-secret mission: “Our job was to learn a new top-secret code based on the Navajo language. […] Using our code, we could send battlefield messages that no one but another Navajo code talker could understand.” Because the Navajo language is so complex, non-native speakers have proven unable to gain proficiency in it, which makes it a perfect code language for use in war. What’s more, the “code talkers” are totally reliant on their memories of their native language. Ironically, then, what white educators tried to stamp out of the Navajo people as children is now valued as a precious resource by the U.S. military. Where they had previously been forced to forget their sacred language as worthless, now Navajo speakers are not just encouraged, but depended upon, to remember it.
Ned explains how code talking was a transformative experience for him: “I had grown up hearing only criticism and hard words from the bilagáanaas about our people. […] To hear what was now being said truly made the sun shine in my heart. The Navajos have proved to be excellent Marines, intelligent, industrious, easily taught to send and receive [coded messages] and excellent in the field. That is what the commanding general of the Sixth Marine Division put in his official report.” In stark contrast to their childhood humiliations, Navajo marines are now praised and valued for doing precisely what they were once shamed for doing—remembering their language. Not only that, their language makes them uniquely suited for their wartime role, making Navajo marines sought-after not only for this skill, but for the other battlefield skills they’ve now had the chance to demonstrate.
Ned concludes his story to his grandchildren by putting it into a larger perspective: “It is not just my story but a story of our people and of the strength that we gain from holding on to our language, from being Dine'. […] I also pray that you will fight to keep our language, to hold on to it with the same warrior spirit that our Indian people showed in that war. Let our language keep you strong and you will never forget what it is to be Navajo.” In other words, he urges the children to remember their language by fighting for it as courageously as the “code talkers” used the language during combat. In doing this, future generations will remember not just the words of the language itself, but also the “story” and “strength” embedded therein—and in that way, they’ll remember who they are.
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Memory, Language, and Identity Quotes in Code Talker
I turned to look up at my uncle's kind face. […] I was frightened by the thought of being away from home for the first time in my life, but I was also trying to find courage. My uncle seemed to know that.
"Little Boy," he said, "Sister's first son, listen to me. You are not going to school for yourself. You are doing this for your family. To learn the ways of the bilagáanaa, the white people, is a good thing. Our Navajo language is sacred and beautiful. Yet all the laws of the United States, those laws that we now have to live by, they are in English."
It was not always easy for me to understand what those other boys and girls were saying. Even though we all spoke in Navajo, we had come from many distant parts of Dinetah. In those days, our language was not spoken the same everywhere by every group of Navajos. But, despite the fact that some of those other children spoke our sacred language differently, what we were doing made me feel happier and more peaceful. We were doing things as our elders had taught us. We were putting ourselves in balance.
"Navajo is no good, of no use at all!" Principal O'Sullivan shouted at us every day. "Only English will help you get ahead in this world!"
Although the teachers at the school spoke in quieter tones than our principal, they all said the same. It was no good to speak Navajo or be Navajo. Everything about us that was Indian had to be forgotten.
However, I was stubborn in ways the teachers could not see. I spoke nothing but Navajo whenever I was alone with other Indian students. In the basement of the school or out back behind the wood shed, I learned Navajo songs and stories. Some students in that school, especially after being beaten enough times for talking Indian, reached the point where it became hard for them to speak Navajo, even when they wanted to. But it was not that way for me. If anything, rather than taking my language away from me, boarding school made me more determined never to forget it.
Even though my body would not grow tall, somehow I knew that there was no limit to the growth of my mind. I read and studied and wrote, and my teachers noticed. I still didn’t speak up much in class–that would have been calling attention to myself or embarrassing to the other students who did not do so well in their studies. Instead I just did well on my written work, passing tests with high grades and handing in assignments done in perfect English. […]
Someday, I said to myself, I will become a teacher, one who does not just teach, but also shows respect to all his Indian students and expects the best of everyone.
"Do you know how many of the twenty-nine men in our platoon washed out?" Johnny Manuelito asked us. "Not even one!"
I was not surprised. Those things that he said a Marine recruit needed to learn were part of our everyday Navajo life back then. We were used to walking great distances over hard terrain while carrying things. We would stay out with our herds of sheep overnight and in the worst weather. Going for two or three days without eating was not unusual for us, even those of us who had gone off to boarding school.
You see, grandchildren, Fort Defiance is the place where our Navajo people were herded together in 1863 to start them on the Long Walk. Their first stop along that hard and painful way was Fort Wingate. Now, eighty years later, Navajos were making that same trip again. This time, though, it was not to go into exile. This time we were going to fight as warriors for the same United States that had treated our ancestors so cruelly.
All through Indian school we had been taught that white men knew everything. That day, for the first time, I realized several things. The first was that bilagáanaas are not born knowing everything. The second was that in many of the most important ways, white men are no different from Navajos. The third? That no matter who they are, people can always learn from each other.
"You have done well," Johnny Manuelito said. "But you must learn to be perfect if you wish to become a code talker."
Code talker. It was the first time I had ever heard that name, but it sounded good to me. Then our two Navajo instructors began to explain our duties to us. The more they said, the better it sounded. Our job was to learn a new top-secret code based on the Navajo language. We would also be trained to be expert in every form of communication used by the Marine Corps, from radios to Morse code. Using our code, we could send battlefield messages that no one but another Navajo code talker could understand.
[The] warning did not frighten me. It made me proud that our sacred language was so important to America. It felt good to know that we were the only ones who could do this useful thing. We swore that we would protect the code with our lives, and we kept our word. I am not sure how many of us became Navajo code talkers during World War Two, but I know that it was close to four hundred men. While it remained classified, not one of us ever told about the code, not even to our families. We kept it secret throughout the war and long after.
[Gene-gene] took me by the arm and led me to a big rock near the ocean. We sat together there for a time without saying anything. Then he bent over, pressed his palm on the ground, and lifted his hand up to rest it against his chest. I understood. He was telling me this land was in his heart. I knelt down on one knee and did the same, then swung my hand in the direction of the rising sun. Gene-gene nodded. He understood that the land of my own heart was there, far across the wide ocean. He placed his left hand on my chest and I did the same. We stood there like that for a while feeling each other's hearts beat with love for our sacred homelands. It was one of the best conversations I ever had.
Some of the things those generals wrote made me feel so good that I almost laughed out loud. Remember, grandchildren, like so many other Navajos, I had grown up hearing only criticism and hard words from the bilagáanaas about our people. We Navajos were stupid. We were lazy. We could not be taught anything. We could never be as good as any white man. To hear what was now being said truly made the sun shine in my heart.
The Navajos have proved to be excellent Marines, intelligent, industrious, easily taught to send and receive by key and excellent in the field.
That is what the commanding general of the Sixth Marine Division put in his official report. […] Each Marine division was expected to have at least 100 code talkers.
I also hear clear voices when I remember that time. I hear those voices and my own heart grows calm again. They are Navajo voices speaking strongly in our sacred language. Speaking over the concussions of the exploding shells so close that the pressure in the air made it hard to breathe. Speaking above the deadly whirr of shrapnel, the snap of Japanese rifles, and the ping of bullets bouncing off our radio equipment. Speaking calmly. Speaking even when our enemies tried to confuse us by getting on our frequency to scream loudly in our ears and bang pots and pans. […] Even when our voices grew hoarse, we did not stop. Our Navajo nets kept everything connected like a spider's strands spanning distant branches. […] As the battle for Iwo Jima raged all around us, our voices held it together.
Finally, in 1969, we were told that we could speak about being code talkers. […] Books were written about us and we were invited to speak at special events. We were invited to the White House by one president after another. We were given medals like this one.
All of that was good, grandchildren. But more important than any praise was the fact that we could now tell this story. We could tell our children and our grandchildren about the way our sacred language helped this country.
So, my grandchildren, that is the tale this medal has helped me to tell. It is not just my story but a story of our people and of the strength that we gain from holding on to our language, from being Dine'. I pray that none of you will ever have to go into battle as I did. I also pray that you will fight to keep our language, to hold on to it with the same warrior spirit that our Indian people showed in that war. Let our language keep you strong and you will never forget what it is to be Navajo. You will never forget what it means to walk in beauty.
