Before World War II, Navajo children were educated in government-owned schools where they were forbidden to speak their own language. In this U.S. National Archives photo, circa 1940, we see Navajo children learning English in their day school.
By the time Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1941, most Navajos had never left their 25,000 square mile reservation. They were one of few tribes allowed to keep their homelands in Arizona, New Mexico and southern Utah. Americans moving west did not want to settle on the rocky, inhospitable and arid Navajo land.
Educated in government schools, Navajo children were forbidden to speak their native language and were taught English. Their native language was unwritten at the time, so the experience of learning a second language was unique for them.
English-speaking teachers discouraged the children from ever speaking their own tongue. Parents, fortunately, ignored such suggestions. Had they heeded that advice, who can say whether the Allies would have won the war in the Pacific?
U.S. public records contain a rich pictorial record of Navajo life in the decade before World War II. A virtual “trip” to the national archives reveals what America’s future Code Talkers experienced before they volunteered for duty.
The Navajo way of life had prepared future Code Talkers to endure the hardships of war. A young man used to deprivation, and the desert’s harshness, would be able to deal with life on a desolate Pacific Island.
On the other hand, a young man free to roam wide-open spaces would have to adjust to Marine Corps discipline.
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