The time period in which World War II took place was a time period that marked a change in the perspective and motive of white Americans towards the Navajo tribe. Likewise, there was a change in the Navajo’s views towards America as their country.
Through a path littered with difficulty and culture conflict, there came a day where men were praised as honorary war heroes for their application of the Native American culture that they were once pressured to abandon towards the ultimate victory in one of the largest wars in history.

The value of this story is not found in it’s immediate events, though. The real value of this change in belief between people lies in the fact that it is only one part of a much bigger struggle towards where we are today as a country in terms of who is able to contribute to our great society. The results that have come from America’s continuing effort to allow those who are different from us to contribute to society are great benefits, and our culture would not otherwise be the same.

People like Chester Nez standing before the President of the United States to receive honorable medals represent more than their achievements; they represent the great accomplishments that would otherwise have been lost had we continued to neglect the importance of diversity. This is not to say that there are not still flaws in the way the United States treats people, because there is. What this is saying is that events such as the code talkers shows movement forward in the way we value people who are not white and born in America.

In Code Talker, the response of the Navajo men to the call for young men to become soldiers was one filled with eagerness and prideful intent. One thing that stood out to me in particular was when Nez claimed that many men even lied about their age just so they could meet the requirements to be considered. The weight of this is huge because this was a tribe that had undoubtedly been moved and bullied by the white men and even had their children sent to white boarding schools to become
“Americanized,” and yet they still felt the desire to fight for
America as their own country. Similar to the African American movement with W.E.B. Dubois, the native tribe saw war as a chance to show their value, and they did.

The change we see in Chester Nez throughout the events of the war is he went from hating the thought to boarding school to eventually being very grateful that he had gone, because if he hadn’t, he would not have learned english or been able to help create the secret code. With this in mind and the before and after pictures in the source packets, the change in Native
Americans in general is that they kept their traditions, but they also allowed Americanization to take place in a balance.
This is the reason that Chester Nez did not move back to his tribal land after the war, but looked for a job and home in a suburban area. In instances like this one, or even instances like the report of the Santella family by Manuel Gamio, we see that in order for diversity to be accepted, groups will most likely have to make room for “the American way” in many (but not all) areas. In this way, we see how the Navajo’s view of America as their country changed.

The value and credit that Americans gave native tribes such as the Navajos greatly changed through the events of World War
II. Prior to the war, there was heavy pressure from white
Americans for indian communities to attend boarding schools and have their cultural and traditional ways cleansed from them.
Upon learning the real value that the Navajos had played in our victory in the Pacific, though, people begin to change their views and the once neglected group of people became appreciated for their contribution of their unique culture to our country’s victory cumulatively. This respect and eventual acceptance did not happen overnight. For many years, people had no idea of the