Code Talkers were not only integral in winning the Pacific Theater of WWII, but they also saved an ancient seafaring culture: Micronesia
This #LongRead is an excerpt from the book, The Desert Warrior by M.B. Dallocchio. Some have asked me why I take the current Neo-Nazi rhetoric so seriously as well as calling out Trump on the current Alt-Right, Powell Memo platform. This is why... The last time I was in Saipan was in 1998 to see my dying grandfather Enrique, “Tata” as we called him. I didn’t pay any heed to another uncle’s words as my mind was made up and I would enlist in the US Army a few days after my 17th birthday. I just focused on getting to Saipan, the largest island of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Micronesia. Being a large family, we all either slept in the available beds or woven mats laid out on the floors of other rooms. My mother and I slept in my grandparent’s room. My grandfather, still a tall man at eighty-six years had withered away from leukemia to barely ninety pounds. A survivor of the Japanese occupation and brutality on the Chamorro people in WWII, he was in line to be beheaded after he had been accused by the Japanese for concealing the whereabouts of American troops. The Japanese had so mercilessly slaughtered the Chamorros and put them into internment camps, but no one is more stubborn than we! As Shinto shrines were erected, indigenous Chamorro Animist and Catholic sites burned and a list of dead Chamorros rose like chimney smoke as Imperial Japan was succeeding in modeling their occupation and ethnic cleansing methods after Nazi Germany. Tata had witnessed heads rolling on the ground in the execution line in front of him in Marpi, Saipan, being ordered to dig their own graves, all the way until Japanese troops were scrambling as American troops landed to capture and liberate the island. As I sat up writing and keeping an eye on Tata throughout the day, I remembered him looking right at me, and perhaps right through me, for hours. Occasionally I’d look up, smile and nod, ask if he was okay, and other times I’d just quickly return to my writing. My mother, curious as to what he was thinking about, asked why he stared at me as he did and he replied in a labored breath, “Suette.” Lucky. In Chamorro culture, there is a belief that before we die, we can see the fate of our loved ones, who they really are and what they’ll become and what lies before them. When Tata called me lucky, I had no idea what he meant. Lucky to be alive after spending a year in Ramadi, Iraq? Lucky that I didn’t get court martialed for mutiny because I had a penchant for keeping a travel journal in my cargo pocket that documented my unit’s corruption? I walked around with a rucksack of guilt for being alive and while I knew that I should be grateful, I wouldn’t exactly call what I was feeling lucky. In the US, schools barely touch upon WWII in the Pacific, and in the end, we feel sorry for the Japanese. But no one in American schools talks about what the Japanese did, and how they were wiping out indigenous people of Oceania and torturing the rest of East Asia. Imperial Japan was brutal, inhumane, and their alliance with Nazi Germany was evident in everything they did and everywhere they went. They were serious soldiers who were excellent at genocide. Before Tata passed away from Leukemia, my uncle Danny, a typically stoic and silent Army Ranger who had deployed around the world like many of us in the family, asked if Tata could ever forgive the Japanese for what they did. It was an important question, one in which involves the deepest hurts and trauma. It was the first time I had heard anyone ask how he felt outside of vaguely disinterested requests for recounting old stories for my cousins’ school projects. Mind you, there are no Chamorro holocaust museums or lobbyist groups to counter Japan’s narrative, or lack thereof, when it comes to war crimes; we are in a very similar boat with Native Americans, preferably silenced. Tata said he had forgiven the Japanese. He was at peace before passing, even though there was no apology for anything the Japanese did, no reparations, not a thing. He forgave them. It wasn’t worth his time to hold onto the anger. Yet in that valiant forgiveness comes a vacuum of accountability on the part of imperial invaders like Japan and Spain. Like rapists, they forced themselves onto the indigenous, fucked them violently and mercilessly, and then denied any accountability. It must be nice to do as you please with minimal to no consequence – free of remorse. Tata still forgave them. If you attended high school in the U.S., Manzanar, the California-based internment camp for Japanese-Americans, was usually discussed from a position of compassion, along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivor stories. On the other hand, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the world - let alone the U.S. - who's heard of Matansa. In fact, you would be lucky to find anyone who believes there is any Pacific Island not located in the South Pacific instead of the North Pacific, which is anything north of the Equator. South Pacific. You know, that musical that apparently ruined Oceania's geography for millions of Americans. Essentially, whether you’re familiar with Julie Andrews fuckery or not, we’ve had little control about how our history, culture, identity is handled and communicated throughout the world. Hell, few people know we exist. Matansa. It means massacre in the Chamorro language, and is a nickname for the village of San Roque in the northern part of the island of Saipan that endured the most brutal slaughtering as a punishment for Chamorro resistance by Imperial Japan in WWII, which was part of an ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign that almost completely wiped out the Chamorro population from the face of the earth. San Roque is my family’s village.
FYI: Saipan and the rest of the Mariana Islands were NEVER Japanese. We were OCCUPIED by the Japanese.
They hacked relatives and non-relatives with machetes and threw people into pits, doused them in kerosene and lit them on fire. My grandfather, who was previously working as a machinist and farmer when the Japanese arrived, was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and was a typical unarmed Native. Like many other Chamorros who were put into concentration camps, they were tortured and interrogated over the whereabouts of American troops who were hiding during reconnaissance of the island. Marine Navajo Code Talkers along with their fellow troops with 2nd Marine Division invaded on the day that my grandfather was scheduled to be executed, June 15, 1944. If it weren't for the Navajo language (Diné), Chamorro people would have been wiped out by the Japanese through their use of torture and concentration camps modeled after the Nazi design. And they were pretty close. Unfortunately, the film Windtalkers entirely dismissed and overlooked what happened to Chamorros and deleted us out of the picture all together. Windtalkers was handled, quite ignorantly, by Hong Kong film director John Woo. The film did, in fact, lightly touch upon the racial persecution Native American code talkers endured during WWII and how they played a crucial role in US military victory in a hard-won Pacific campaign, which is barely discussed in the realm of US history in grade school or at the University level for that matter. Anyone who's attended public high school in the US can attest to the European theater of WWII dominating the discussion, and quite disproportionately. The film featured fierce combat between Imperial Japan and the United States, and showed exemplary courage and humility among Native code talkers. However, Chamorros – who endured ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Japanese on the island of Saipan, where the battle took place – were completely absent from the film. It was as though the entire indigenous population of the island that almost disappeared due to Imperial Japan's Nazi-esque ethnic cleansing agenda, well, didn't even exist at all. The film practically called Saipan a "Japanese Island" which of course erases roughly seven thousand years of indigenous, Micronesian Chamorro history in the Marianas in one thoughtless, inhumane sentence for billions to see. WWII may not have rendered us exterminated as an ethnic group, but John Woo sure made Chamorros feel that way via film. When you’re persistently deleted from history, media, and any other channel to access information – or that information is distorted – it’s far worse than physically killing someone. It, instead, induces a form of psychological death. How can you truly be alive, how can you genuinely breathe, when everyone around you believes that you either don’t exist or are dead? However, as a Chamorro with generational trauma from multiple attempts at ethnic cleansing by Spain from the 1500s to the late 1800s, Imperial Japan during WWII, and having faced racial persecution in Iraq, I can only hope that putting the pieces of lives shattered by trauma back together can result in a stronger American-made fabric. We are all, no matter our color, part of the same Americana quilt. I’m drifting off to sleep. On an island, I saw myself in a white dress as a little girl. I walked with my family to the seashore where a boat was waiting for us to board. As I watched family members pack up our belongings, I knelt down in the shallow waters of the beach and cleared sand off of a beautiful shell. It looked like the inside of an oyster. Sea foam, pearl, and flashes of turquoise danced in my eyes. Splashing in the water and singing with my beautiful find, a woman who appeared to be my mother called after me to hurry up. She looked distressed. Before getting into the boat, I turned and saw white plumes of smoke rising from the island’s volcano. This was an evacuation. “We have to go!” the gentle maternal voice insisted as she held my hand. As the boat took off from the island, I waved goodbye as the volcano reacted. “Pagan,” my mother said, when I woke from the dream. Chamorros are serious about their dreams, and often insist messages from the spirit world await us in the fog of sleep. I told my mother about the strange dream, and she told me it sounded like an actual time when her mother, Ignacia, and her family left the island of Pagan in the Northern Marianas for Saipan. Nana, as us grandchildren called her, was a woman of few words. The dream puzzled me, but in Chamorro dream interpretation, this is meant to be a forecast, a premonition. “Maybe Nana’s showing you something, a sign. Pay attention to what you saw. Those are your clues,” my mother said during the long journey from Florida to Saipan. Shortly after my return from Prague in 2007, we found out Nana was dying of a variety of medical conditions. My maternal grandmother had been hospitalized and her condition was considered terminal as her heart disease and diabetes was now affecting her ability to walk and her circulation became so poor, amputation of limbs would have been the next step if it weren’t for her frail cardiac condition. My mother and I took flight from Jacksonville to Newark, then a 16-hour flight over the North Pole and Russia to Hong Kong, stopping briefly in Guam. My dreams of Nana continued on this flight and my mind wrestled with the symbols. The flight from danger, happiness found in unexpected moments, the discovery of beloved people or places when we aren’t trying so hard. I dreamt of the seashell, symbols, archetypes, the colors, the subtle appearances of iridescent pearl and sea foam. As we boarded a rickety propeller plane bound for Saipan, I looked out past the cliffs of Guam toward the sea and thought of all the beauty and pain of the Marianas. In places like Oceania, conquerors, whether from Europe or East Asia, seem to lose their polite disposition upon reaching our island shores. When Spain colonized the Mariana Islands in 1521, they easily swung into full-oppression mode when met with people who actually embodied the community and social generosity of Christianity’s supposed core that they were so desperate to shove the cross in the faces of the indigenous populace. It was a distraction great enough to keep one’s eyes off property, resources, and land. That seductive aroma of unchecked power was more than enough to commit genocide and mass sexual assault while unashamedly carrying their nation’s flag draped around a crucifix. People completely devoid of introspection, flaunting their entitlement and a self-importance that masked an endless pit of dejection that demanded more gold, land, and power. The Spanish crown was a plague of miserable dimensions for Chamorros. Colonizers used up resources, exploited people, raped the land, and when they were done, it was onto the next one. I thought about the upcoming wedding the whole way, and why I had a sinking feeling that I couldn't shake off. Perhaps, deep down, I was afraid of someone trying to "conquer" me, to lay claim to me as an object, and not a person. To be used, and not loved, or to be exploited, not fulfilled. Metal parts clanged around us as doubt consumed me. “OH, GOD! Is this how you felt in Iraq?” she asked as she clenched my hands as we waited for take-off. “No, this is scarier,” I laughed and continued to hold her hand as she buried her face into my shoulder praying the rosary. The flight, operated by Cape Air – also known as “Cape Scare” among fliers who have no other choice than to risk their lives with what feels like a coffin with wings – which has a monopoly on flights going in and out of Saipan, was rough to put it gently. It was a turbulent ride that made you question your life choices from birth to present. I tried not to show the slightest bit of anxiety in front of my mother who appeared to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As we approached the coast of Tinian, I took my camera out to snap pictures of the north side of the island and the ocean between the island and Saipan. Craggy coastline embraced by deep sapphire waters appeared along with what I liked to call “the old Pizza Huts,” Saipan International Airport, with its reddish, hut-like rooftops covering the white sand terminal. Upon landing, my brother Rodney was waiting along with his three younger kids to greet us. We went to his house to shower and have lunch before heading over to the hospital. He had caught a few parrot fish that morning and waited for us so he could cut it open, put some sea salt and lemon, and then grill it. We had that with steamed rice and finadene, a spicy Chamorro dipping sauce made with tiny fiery peppers, lemon, and soy sauce. That buttery taste of parrot fish, the spices, the ocean breeze flowing through the open doors and windows of the house carried a faint scent of flowers and mangoes. It was good to be back. When we reached the hospital, my mother used humor to shield her fear, which was surprising to me as she had spent the past thirty-six hours on the edge of a meltdown next to me. She greeted Nana, who barely recognized her. I was unsure of how this was affecting her as she continued to joke and laugh with Nana, acting as though she weren’t terrified of what may happen next. My mother then helped Nana to scoot over, and then climbed onto the hospital bed with her. I paused and took in the sight of my mother and grandmother. My mother, as ill-tempered and anxious as she may be, was like a little girl clinging to mommy’s dress right before my eyes. She was holding Nana’s hand and put her head on her shoulders, telling her jokes as Nana smiled and chuckled through apparent physical pain. I was used to seeing her vulnerable in a PTSD sort of way, but this is the first I’ve seen of what appeared to be the most obvious sign. Perhaps much of her anxious and fearful behavior was partially childhood regression, unresolved wounds from decades before as in her first marriage that involved intense physical and emotional abuse. Dealing with both Nana and Tata in their post-war processing must’ve been hell too. Despite her smiles and laughter, my mother looked helpless and alone. We’re all children in the presence of our parents, no matter our age. As my mother set up camp with Nana, my brother and his family filed in and greeted a few relatives already in the room. We overcrowded the room and began telling stories to each other as though we were a traveling troupe to entertain our dying matriarch, to keep her smiling and engaged. Not too long after, everyone prepared to leave and my mom left briefly with my aunt to go talk somewhere else in the hospital. I stayed in the room alone with Nana. Nana began squeezing my hand, motioning me to massage her hands and arms. For Chamorros, massage is not exactly meant to be erotic; it’s meant to heal. When I stopped massaging her hands, she’d twitch as though to tell me to continue. My mom used to do the same thing as her non-verbal cue to tell me the massage wasn’t over. By the age of ten, every Chamorro kid is a freelance massage therapist. In the US, being an herbal healer or anyone who believes in spiritual healing can be labeled quickly as a shaman, witch doctor, or something tacky that actually condescends to or cheapens the practice. Being a suruhana (female healer) or suruhanu (male healer) was not anything you could learn in a book, online, or anywhere else without becoming an apprentice. Nana’s mother taught her, her grandmother taught her mother, and so on. “We’re proud to have women warriors coming back now. This war was not right, but you had no choice and were brave. You now know things no one else does and you see life differently. That’s a gift and a curse, just know how to use it wisely,” a distant uncle said. It was funny how I had to make it all this way from across the globe to hear that women warriors are deserving of respect. I didn’t feel that way back in the continental U.S. Pacific Islander culture is used to the idea of fierce women, and the transition into being a combat veteran was not far-fetched in the minds of Chamorros.
As an Iraq war veteran, I've developed a much stronger awareness to others who often go unheard, ignored. Hell, I'm a bisexual Chamorro female combat veteran. If the VA decides to wake up and process a claim, add disabled to that list. If that doesn't scare your closest human resources department, I don't know what will.
With my family coming from what seems like the opposite end of the Manzanar experience, I can see that through the telling of our stories, that no matter where we are in the traumatic pain spectrum, we all have permission to share - and to the betterment of our society. War shatters lives in more ways than the bloodied battlefields tell. Yet through effectively verbalizing and expressing our pain, no matter the source, we can give ourselves and others the room to grieve, process, and eventually heal. Nana and Tata, like many other Chamorros, dealt with the aftermath of war with little to no assistance in recovering their broken lives. One thing I recalled about Nana was that she never smiled. Or at least I knew of no one who had witnessed her smiling. Ever. She laughed. I recall her tremor-like laughter that would shake the table and such laughter was usually directed at other people. Her laughter came with minimal commentary or a judgmental huff. She didn’t need to say anything. If she was laughing at you, it was for a reason. Like a weathered infantryman, she had endured war and was ever-aware of her surroundings as well as the idiosyncrasies and behavior of others. Before having to depart for the mainland, we stopped by to see Nana at home to say good-bye. As we walked out the door we both stopped after putting our shoes on and turned around to look at Nana one more time. She slowly raised her right hand and bent her fingers down and up, down and up. As she was waving good-bye, she was smiling. It was the purest, most innocent smile from someone whose life was so incredibly difficult, filled with pain, and spent in service to others in the village using local medicine. We saw peace in her eyes and in that instant, our hearts sank together to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. We returned her wave as it hit us like a tsunami. We stood there drenched in the last adios. As we marched through the dark and back to the car, we were silent. Rodney’s wife waited for us in the driver’s seat and asked if we were okay. That’s when my mother broke down sobbing like a toddler who couldn’t find her parents, “Let’s go. Please, just drive.” --- What’s ironic in this story is that Navajos and Chamorros are actually related to each other. The Japan Times published an article about an ancient disease called the JC Virus that has linked Navajos, Chamorros, and the Japanese as related to one another. Navajos migrated into the Americas and present-day Arizona and New Mexico while Chamorros took to the ocean and landed in the Mariana Islands circa 5000 BCE. It’s all too sad that all three of us had to endure such a horrific family reunion. The Japanese slaughtering Chamorros, then the Navajos arrive in US military gear and intervene to end genocide. Ironic, even more so, that centuries before that the US military uniform was used to commit genocide against Native Americans across the continental United States. We have a lot in common. We’ve endured slaughters for hundreds of years by one European or East Asian country after the other. But our history is often dismissed, buried, and snuffed out like a candle. It often feels as though such omission is another form of genocide. An institutional form of murder that mutes us into non-existence. While I was in Iraq in 2005, I finally got to watch "Windtalkers" for the first time. It was painful to watch as I imagined what my now deceased relatives went through. While I felt nothing sufficed in what I could do to express gratitude, I reached out to a Navajo Code Talkers page. I wrote a lengthy thank you letter, citing that I was Chamorro and just learned more about Code Talkers and their impact on the Mariana Islands. It felt like a drop of water from an ocean of gratitude. A gentleman from the Code Talkers organization soon wrote back expressing gratitude for my letter. I felt ashamed that he thanked me. I just wanted him to accept my gratitude and whatever I could do to help in letting the last surviving Code Talkers how much they’re appreciated. This week, as I watched Trump shit all over Elizabeth Warren, calling her Pocahontas (I know she appropriated Native culture, but Nazi's don't get to rewrite history), I also noticed this verbal defecation on Navajo Code Talkers happened in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson while the malignant narcissist otherwise known as Der Gropencheeto tried to make the event about himself. While I have a hard time understanding how any veteran can support an openly racist, Nazi-loving piece of shit, I also understand that many Americans have both a hard time with history as well as seeing beyond their front porch. Nevertheless, the disrespect was deafening. While many of the Code Talkers have passed away since that letter in 2005, you can help support the Code Talkers through learning more through the Navajo Code Talker Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. You can also learn more about islands like Saipan and what they've endured in WWII by starting with Pacific Historic Parks.
1 Comment
Sarah Richey
12/6/2017 21:48:35
What an amazing country we live in. Thanks to you all!.
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AuthorM.B. Dallocchio is an artist, author, Iraq war veteran, and social worker based in London. Her latest book, “The Desert Warrior,” covers post-traumatic growth, resilience, and redefining one’s own personal meaning of “home.” Archives
August 2020
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