Rethinking 'English-only'

Native language is a precious resource that should not be squandered. That is the moral of an exceptionally good story now being shared far and wide.

At a U.S. Capitol ceremony long overdue, President Bush recently presented the Congressional Gold Medal, our nation's highest civilian honor, to four of the five living Navajo code talkers who provided invaluable service to the U.S. Marines during World War II. The other two dozen – of the original 29 – were represented by family members who accepted the medals on their behalf.

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Recruited by the Marines specifically because of their language skills, the code talkers spent months developing and memorizing a special code. Assigned to all six Marine divisions, the Navajo took part in every Marine assault in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945.

Transmitting secret messages by telephone and radio – including more than 800 in the first two days at Iwo Jima – the Navajo used the language of their youth, and words with hidden meanings, to pass to one another vital information on enemy troop movements and the like. This Navajo "code talk" baffled the Japanese, producing the only messages that their expert code-breakers could not decipher. In the process, countless American lives were saved.

After the war, the code talkers were sworn to secrecy about their role in the war effort, and they kept their word. But that robbed them of the credit they were due, insists Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, who sponsored the legislation that authorized the medals.

Not that it would have likely made much difference. Even if the story had been known at the time, the experience of Latino, African-American, and Asian-American soldiers – who returned from World War II to a nation that was largely unchanged and, with regard to soldiers of color, unappreciative – suggests that America in the 1940s was not yet ready to embrace the idea of Indian heroes.

Well, it is ready now. The tale of the code talkers will hit the big screen in November with the big-budget feature film, "Windtalkers," starring Nicolas Cage, who attended the ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda.

To take the full measure of the story, one must roll the tape back and consider what the lives of 29 Navajo warriors – and other American lndians – were like before the Marines came calling.

It is a strange irony of America that its first inhabitants have long been treated as though they were immigrants. Under the guise of "civilizing" them, they were forced to assimilate into a culture that was imposed upon them. America – the brochure always says – expects that its existing rules and customs be adhered to by newcomers. But the rules never applied to those newcomers who conquered the Indians.

In Western states in the early- and mid-20th century, Navajo – like other Indian languages – proved so frightening to English speakers that those who ran the schools tried to erase it by punishing those who spoke it. As with Spanish-speakers in states like Arizona, Texas and California, Indian children were spanked for speaking their native languages, their mouths washed out with soap – all in a vile campaign to scrub away human differences and make something that was considered "foreign" appear less so. Government-run boarding schools, like the Indian School in Phoenix, attempted to "de-Indianize" young people. Their hair was cut, their tribal customs devalued in favor of American ways.

Things change, but sometimes not that much. Today, in the spirited debate over English-only laws, so much attention is paid to complaints from Spanish speakers that one hardly notices that some of the loudest objections often come from Native Americans determined to spare new generations the sense of cultural inferiority that has plagued them for years.

That is what makes the tale of the Navajo code talkers so priceless. In the end, the very language that scared America, served America. The story does, however, prompt one to question the skills of those classroom teachers who were responsible for stripping the Navajo of their language by teaching them to forget.

Those lessons were, we can assume, failed by 29 young Navajo who grew up to be Marines. That is something for which the country should be grateful.