4.+Minority+Contributions

Peter Voorhees Diary of Tyrone Biggums


 * July 6, 1644**

Today Armando Julio Felipe Lopez de la Cruz Vasquez del Rio el Segundoooooo and I were serving food in the mess hall to all the white soldiers. We normally try to ignore their bragging about being right in the action but for some reason it really got to Armando Julio Felipe Lopez de la Cruz Vasquez del Rio el Segundo today, I almost had to hold him back to prevent a fight. After I got him settled down we talked about how we didn’t deserve to be serving food to these jerks; we should be with the other minority regiments fighting the war. We felt that it was our turn to fight, so we went to Sergeant to try get assigned to an infantry regiment. It’s not that there aren’t Mexicans and blacks who are fighting, although black regiments are limited to mostly non-combat roles. For example there are over 300,000 thousand Mexican Americans and there are over 1 million African-Americans serving in the armed forces as well, although I would like to serve in a combat unit like the Tuskegee airmen ("Who"). There are even Asian-Americans fighting for us. Imagine that, a Japanese-American fighting against his own ancestors (Danzer 536).

http://www.blackarchives.org/files/imagecache/collectionitem_large/files/collection/00000030.jpg

Today Armando Julio Felipe Lopez de la Cruz Vasquez del Rio el Segundo and I received great news; our sergeant was able to get us assigned to actual infantry divisions. The bad news is that the army is still segregated so Armando Julio Felipe Lopez de la Cruz Vasquez del Rio el Segundo and I will be split up. My division is an all black regiment but we also have a group of Navajo Code talkers. A Navajo Code Talker is a just a name for Native-Americans from the Navajo tribes who has been assign to transmitting coded messages In their native tongues. The Navajo codes talkers are in every marine division and have taken part in every assault since 1942. They have been hugely successful because the Navajo Language is extremely hard to learn, in fact there are only 30 non-Navajo, Navajo speaking people in the world. However the Navajo are not the only Native Americans who are serving in the army, there are around 25,000 others enlisted right now ("Navajo").
 * August 3, 1944**

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2008-featured-story-archive/navajo-code-talkers/navajo-code-talkers-1.jpg

Danzer, Gerald A., et al. __The Americans__. McDougal Littell, 2005. __Navajo Code Talkers: World War II Facts Sheet.__ 1997. Naval Historical Center. 19 March 2009.  __Who Were the Tuskegee Airmen.__ Tuskegee Airmen Inc. 19 March 2009. 
 * Work Cited**