Where It All Goes Down
Southwest United States and the Pacific Islands
Southwest United States
The landscape of the southwest U.S.—beautiful deserts, arroyos, and a huge blue sky— is central to Code Talker. The Navajo Nation, after all, traces its origins to the southwest, to the area overlapping Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. So even though you might hear "New Mexico" and think "Breaking Bad," forget everything you know about Walter White's Land of Enchantment and learn about the (way more peaceful and gorgeous) homeland of Chester Nez.
Big chunks of the book are set in this location: this was, after all, where Chester was born and went back to live after the war. Chester tells us about his childhood on the Checkerboard, an area near the Navajo reservation where Navajos, Anglos and others lived on their land—including his family. When he returns from the war, he settles in Albuquerque with his wife and kids.
Chester spends a lot of time evoking the landscape of the southwest. He pictures for us "the wide-open country" of the Checkerboard, with its "thousands of unfenced acres" and its "pinon, juniper, and oak trees [stretching out] in intermittent bands" (2.5).
Chester devotes so much time to describing this landscape because it's a landscape that's central to his identity as a Navajo. The Navajo are very attached to their land and have a deep respect for nature. After all, they've been living on this same land for thousands and thousands of years. By giving us such a detailed description of the southwest, Chester conveys to us just what an important part this breathtaking landscape plays in Navajo culture and identity.
The Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands are the second major setting in the memoir. These islands are the stage for the battle against the Japanese, and it's where Chester goes through his toughest times. Remember how we asked you to forget the gruesome landscape of Walter White's New Mexico in favor of Chester Nez's idyllic one? You basically want to do the reverse with the Pacific Islands. Forget your dreams of sunning yourself on a beach with a tropical flower in your hair—these islands are rough. They may be beautiful, but they're scarred by war.
When Chester returns to Guadalcanal after the island is taken by the Americans, he describes the "scattered foxholes, splintered trees, and the occasional broken-down tank" littering the once-beautiful island (15.1). When Chester and his partner Francis land on Peleliu, the site of the fiercest battle, he describes how the "bodies of American military dotted the sand" (16.14).
Chester shows us how these beautiful tropical paradises are transformed into scenes of hell during the war. We won't find any people sipping pina coladas on these beaches. What we will find are dead bodies, artillery shells, bombs, and foxholes. Chester's description of the devastation that takes place on the Pacific islands gives us a pretty grim picture of just how rough the battle between the Americans and the Japanese was during World War II.