Navajo People Go To War

Navajo land contained some of the world’s largest concentrations of uranium in a time period when the American government was scrambling to locate a steady source of this element. The uranium boom was fueled by the desperate desire to make atomic bombs faster than Americans communist foes. The Cold War pushed the American government into a frenzy to quickly develop the Manhattan Project and seek an area that could support it; this craze led the government to ignore various warnings from the leading medics and scientists of the era. As a result of this blatant disregard of these warnings, the Navajo peoples who volunteered to go to war and those who worked in mines and these people’s families have dealt with intense emotional distress and …show more content…
The Navajo people had no loyalties or allegiances to the United States to sacrifice the lives of their people to aid their war efforts, or allow these people to come onto their soil and violate their land. Nevertheless this is exactly what happened. “They offered up their young men, and they offered up their language” (Pasternak 4). Navajo peoples went to go serve for the American cause over seas in World War Two. This action showed their grace and overall kindness to a government who had done nothing but wrong them since the beginning of time. This is why this story of neglect is so scandalous and horrific. In addition to sacrificing their lives they also sacrifice their culture. During World War Two the Navajo people used their language to become code talkers. Because the Navajo language was specific to this group of people, within America, it became and unbreakable code for the allies powers to utilize. The war itself overseas and at home affected all of the Navajo people. They suffered emotionally in many different ways only some of these being from the horrible feelings one has having a loved one overseas risking their lives, having to watch as their adored culture was assaulted and tainted by outsiders for greedy purposes and finally the communal sadness of watching their holy homeland being torn apart and dismembered for a fight that wasn’t their own. But this wasn’t …show more content…
These people suffer from constant emotional distress, physical ailments, and constant reminders of the imprints and traces of the different ways the United States government took advantage of them. Because of the tremendous amounts of mining that occurred on their land Navajo people suffered and still suffer from many medical and environmental ails. Waste runoff and toxic gas from the Manhattan Project mixed into their drinking supplies, into their homes, churches, schools, meeting places, and in the air. However this pollution only matters if a structure was lucky enough to remain standing after the mining. Many homes and other buildings of significance were sacrificed for the mining. “The big machines chopped and diced the home of their childhood into a ragged heap of lumber and cement” (Pasternak 251). Not only have the Navajo lost their homes, but their lives. Many of them lost their lives during the mining, and still even to this day. This epidemic of health issues is derived from the large and unhealthy amounts of uranium that were taken from the Navajos land. “In the end, 12.5 percent of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project came from the Colorado Plateau, including the Navajo vanadium mines” (Pasternak 51). Not only were the amounts of chemicals taken and exposed to the land unnatural, but also the working conditions were cruel and poor. The miners spent time