By LILY ALEXANDER
The Santa Fe New Mexican

Advocates of Navajo Code Talkers — U.S. Marines in World War II who relayed critical messages in secret, unbreakable codes based on their Indigenous language — have been waiting seven years for a museum honoring the veterans.

Code Talkers themselves — only two still living — have been waiting far longer.

“They wanted to see this museum since 1971,” said Vern Lee, who serves on the board of the nonprofit Navajo Code Talkers Museum Inc. “That’s over 54 years ago.”

“And we’ve got nothing to show for it,” museum board Secretary and Treasurer Albert Damon chimed in.

The nonprofit has been working on plans for the museum since it formed in 2019 — the same year the late state Sen. John Pinto, a Code Talker from Gallup, secured more than $1 million in legislative capital outlay for the project. But with repeated roadblocks — including lack of action by the project’s fiscal agent, the Navajo Nation — progress has been slow. Now, without reauthorization of unspent state allocations, the $9.6 million the group has secured for the proposed museum so far could expire next year, Damon said.

The money isn’t the only reason for the rush. The two living Code Talkers may never see the project come to fruition. Peter MacDonald, who serves as the president of Navajo Code Talkers Museum Inc., is 98, and Thomas Begay, who visited the state Capitol last year, is 101.

“We’re running out of time,” Damon said.

The museum group, with the help of former state Rep. Anthony Allison, a Fruitland Democrat, is now trying to secure a new fiscal agent so it can access the state funds and move forward with the project in the northwestern New Mexico community of Tse Bonito. The group has been meeting with McKinley County officials who are interested, Damon said.

“If we can secure the agent, then we can move,” he said.

The Navajo Nation has never signed an authorization to accept the money, according to Damon — nor has it issued a formal letter relinquishing its role as the fiscal agent.

Navajo Nation officials did not respond to requests for comment.

At a tribal council meeting last month, President Buu Nygren said he would be “more than happy” to sign a letter stating the nonprofit would “handle it.”

Nygren also accused the museum group of making the project political.

“We do not want to make this political,” Allison said.

‘Hopefully we get the action’

Lee, Damon and Allison met with Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s chief of staff Tuesday at the state Capitol in Santa Fe to discuss the potential reauthorization of the project’s funding during the current legislative session — now at its halfway point. 

Damon walked away from the meeting with hope, but Lee said he did not feel as good about it.

“I wanted to meet with the governor, and I wanted her to say, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ “ Lee said. “What action is she going to take? Hopefully we get the action within two weeks.”

The governor’s chief spokesperson, Michael Coleman, wrote in an email Wednesday Lujan Grisham has long supported the museum and would like to see it built.

At a December meeting of the Navajo Nation Council’s New Mexico Caucus State Task Force Committee, state Sen. Shannon Pinto, D-Tohatchi, called for progress on the museum, according to a news release.

“I told the state that if I don’t see a hard letter for reauthorization of a new fiscal agent for McKinley County, I’ll start the process myself, and it won’t reflect well on the nation,” Pinto said at the meeting, according to the release.

She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The museum group will need an estimated $55 million more to complete the project, Damon said, noting the $9.6 million will fund the design work and preliminary site work.

The group is hopeful it will find other funding sources, including, potentially, the federal government.

“There’s a lot of momentum behind it,” Damon said. “We just can’t get past the hurdle to get the money flowing so we can get everything that we’re talking about there.”

Navajo Code Talkers Museum Inc. has everything else in place to kickstart the project, its members said: a master plan, a design team at the ready and 200 acres of land in Tse Bonito, a village near Window Rock along the Arizona border on N.M. 264.

“We’re talking about a world-class museum, not just a museum,” Lee said. “The museum is perpetual. It would talk about the language, God-given language to the Navajo, which was never broken as a code.”

The nonprofit wants the museum to serve as an educational place for children, Lee said, so they leave with extensive knowledge about the language, culture and tradition of the Navajo people. There’s nothing like what they are envisioning in the state now, he said.

“Some Code Talkers didn’t come home,” Lee said. “It’s to honor those guys, and the ones that came home.”