EOM 2 Intro

EOM 2 Intro

Code Talker/Farewell To Manzanar

Code Talker

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.

Life before the war..

Throughout his childhood and youth, Ned is forced by the majority culture to try to devalue and forget his Navajo identity.

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.

During the war:

• 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.”

• 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.

After the war:

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.

Message to grandchildren

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.

Farewell To Manzanar

Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston describes her childhood at Manzanar Japanese Internment Camp in California. The stories she shares illustrate the long-term impact this experience has on her and over 100,000 other Japanese Americans.

Before the war:

Because Wakatsuki Houston is just seven years old when she enters Manzanar, we see the events through the eyes of a child. She doesn't have a full grasp of what's happening around her. This creates a theme of childhood innocence. For example, Wakatsuki Houston recalls boarding the bus to the internment camp feeling excited and proud of the new coat her mother had bought her. She doesn't mind her family's cramped barracks because she gets to share a bed with her mother. When she encounters a racist teacher, she can't understand why the teacher won't help her. Her childhood innocence initially shelters her from the harsh reality she and her family face.

During the internment:

Identity of her:

In many ways, seven-year-old Wakatsuki Houston doesn't identify with being Japanese. She and her siblings are Nisei, or children born in America to Japanese immigrants. Like many other Nisei, she is heavily influenced by American culture and doesn't speak Japanese. In fact, she is initially terrified of other Japanese children. Much of her time at Manzanar is spent trying to develop her identity, and this becomes a theme in this work. Like many young girls, she wants to be popular and the center of attention. She describes visiting a geisha, or a female Japanese entertainer trained in the arts of dance, music, and hospitality. She spends time with a Christian sect and tries out activities like ballet in an effort to find somewhere to belong.

How she was treated:

• To Caucasian Americans, her visual appearance defines her identity. Wakatsuki Houston describes an early encounter with a young, white classmate who is surprised to learn that she speaks English.

•  I would be seen as someone foreign, or as someone other than American, or perhaps not be seen at all. 

• Being identified as Japanese has social implications. She describes encounters where she would have to choose friends based on whether their parents would allow her into their homes. Boyfriends are scarce.

After the internment camp:

This revelation is an enormous disappointment to Jeanne when she experiences it, yet it’s ultimately liberating. The woman she’s become by the end of the memoir—both an author and a mother, deeply rooted in America yet educating the world about Japanese culture and identity—is much richer and more complex than the cookie-cutter roles she tries to fulfill during high school. Jeanne’s childhood during internment and her education afterwards are rarely pleasant and at times traumatic. However, they both help her develop an independent and strong character, and figure out the role she wants to inhabit as an adult.