Professor Laura Tohe - "Armed with Our Language, We Went to War: The Navajo Code Talkers."
Channel: Department of English, Arizona State University
Date: 2016-06-01

Professor of English Laura Tohe, the newly named Poet Laureate of the Navajo Nation, presents "Armed with Our Language, We Went to War: The Navajo Code Talkers." Following her talk, winners of English's Homecoming Writing Awards will be announced and will read from their work.
 
During WWII a select group of young Navajo men enlisted in the Marines with a unique weapon. Using the Navajo language, they devised a secret code that the enemy never deciphered. For over 40 years a cloak of secrecy hung over the Code Talkers' service until the code was declassified and they were finally honored for their military contributions in the South Pacific by Presidents Reagan, Bush, and of the Navajo Nation. The Code Talkers’ cultural background, how the code was devised and used, and how Navajo spiritual beliefs were used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) form this presentation. Tohe has a unique vantage point as a native speaker of Navajo and as the daughter of a Code Talker.
 
The event is sponsored by the Department of English, an academic unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and is part of ASU's Salute to Service programming.

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015
ASU Tempe campus