‘An overstep’: Navajo Code Talker descendants criticize New Mexico’s new plan for museum

For decades, Navajo Code Talkers and their descendants have dreamed of an expansive museum on the Navajo Nation that would educate the public about the complex code they developed using their language, credited with helping secure Allied victory in World War II. Some have also hoped for a connected veteran’s center and space to do research and store archival material.

The state of New Mexico has set aside $20 million in capital outlay, half of that this year, and Chevron donated about 200 acres of land in Tse Bonito, near Window Rock, the Navajo Nation capital, in 2009.

Now, a museum is finally moving forward, with a groundbreaking planned for December — but at an entirely different site.

New Mexico state officials and Navajo Preparatory School are planning to build a scaled-down version on the school’s campus in Farmington, a town just outside the boundary of the Navajo Nation, about two hours northeast of Tse Bonito.

Some descendants say that wouldn’t do justice to their fathers and other Code Talkers, and they question why they weren’t consulted about it.

“To me, it was an overstep and overreach by the governor,” said Zonnie Gorman, the daughter of the late Carl N. Gorman, one of the original 29 Code Talkers. She’s also a recognized historian of the Code Talkers.

Neither Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office nor Navajo Prep responded to requests for comment.

The project has also faced scrutiny from state lawmakers.

During a Tuesday meeting of the Indian Affairs Committee, lawmakers spent an hour and a half questioning the cabinet secretary for Indian Affairs — one of several state agencies involved in the project — and the head of Navajo Prep about consultation of descendants, operational details, and ownership.

“I think it’s a responsibility of ours … and to our Navajo citizens across the state that we have some insight into, where’s the money going, who’s getting paid, how much are they getting paid for this work,” said Sen. Angel Charley, D-Acoma. “It has been years in the making.”

Earlier this summer, the state General Services Department and Indian Affairs Department put out a request for proposals from architecture or engineering firms with a June deadline. When it was first published, the request included a requirement that firms identify a Code Talker subject matter expert to consult on the project.

That was how Gorman learned about the new plan. She got a flurry of emails in May from a handful of firms asking if she’d serve as an expert.

The requirement was removed about a month after the original request was published. A spokesperson for the Indian Affairs Department didn’t respond to a question about why it was taken out.

Growing up, Gorman, who has a doctorate in history from the University of New Mexico, attended countless Code Talker gatherings, during which discussions of a potential museum would come up.

She sees a museum as a way to give the public a deeper understanding of what the Code Talkers, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, accomplished and just how intricate their code was. The popular narrative about them is “superficial,” Gorman said, due in part to persistent, inaccurate stereotypes about Native Americans being primitive.

“You see that so intertwined and woven into the way in which the Navajo Code Talkers’ story is told in popular narrative. ‘Oh, they substituted words because they didn’t have words in their native language for bombs and tanks,’ not understanding how the language actually works,” she said.

While she appreciates Lujan Grisham is attempting to honor a promise she made to get a museum built, Gorman said, the plan should have been more carefully considered.

On top of concerns about the scope of the museum, the location is also a sticking point, said Laura Tohe, the daughter of the late Code Talker Benson Tohe, who enlisted at 16 years old after convincing his parents to give their permission.

“Farmington is the site of a lot of social injustice for Navajo people and Indigenous people,” Tohe said. “That didn’t sit right with (her and other descendants) to build this facility that’s going to attract visitors, and give the businesses their patronage, and in the meantime, this dark history with Indigenous people exists there.”

Tohe, a professor emerita of English at Arizona State University and the author of “Code Talker Stories,” also first learned about the plan through outreach from architecture firms. She and Gorman are part of a larger group of descendants who work to preserve the legacy of the Code Talkers.

From 2019 to 2025, New Mexico appropriated nearly $10 million for the museum, with Lujan Grisham providing most of the money through her capital outlay allocations. As of April 2026, only about $279,000 had been spent. About $7.2 million of the remaining money must be spent by July 2027, while $1.5 million is available through June 2028 and about $1 million through June 2029.

And this year, Lujan Grisham allocated another $10 million to the museum and used a line-item veto to remove language requiring it to be built in McKinley County, where Tse Bonito is.

The $20 million will cover the construction and exhibit design work, the Indian Affairs Department said in a press release Friday.

Some of the funding came from Sen. Shannon Pinto, D-Tohatchi, whose late grandfather, former state senator John Pinto, was a Code Talker who advocated for the creation of the museum.

The move to Farmington, Pinto said, was driven in part by Lujan Grisham’s desire to see the museum on track to being built before she leaves office at the end of the year.

Lujan Grisham “felt that she wanted to walk in through the doors of something, and even at least our Code Talkers too, to be able to walk through, so she knew time was of the essence,” Pinto said.

Exactly how many men were trained as Code Talkers is unclear. Gorman puts the number at about 400.

Only two of them are still alive.

The plan came together quickly during this year’s 30-day legislative session, Pinto said.

“Some of that timeline was not really in my hands,” Pinto said. “If this was something that could have had a little more time to evolve, I think the input (from other descendants) would have been allowed.”

Pinto said it’s her understanding another Code Talker group is still pursuing the Tse Bonito museum.

Gorman and Tohe met with state officials and Navajo Prep administrators in June — a little over a week before the deadline for requests for proposals — to share their concerns.

One of their takeaways was that the museum was going to be built despite their objections, Gorman said, so they proposed a compromise, outlined in a letter sent in late June to those who attended the meeting.

They suggested the building not be called a museum and instead be used as a space for a Diné bizaad (Navajo language) program, plus a “one-of-a-kind exhibition” about the Code Talkers, perhaps housed in a public lobby. Their proposal, they wrote, “better fits the mission of the school and its long-term goals,” while not “diminish(ing) the movement toward one day seeing a state-of-the-art Navajo Code Talkers museum.”

As of Tuesday, they hadn’t gotten a response from state officials.

But it appears some of their suggestions were heard.

The museum will house a Diné bizaad institute and a student leadership program, Navajo Prep Head of School Shawna Becenti told lawmakers on the Indian Affairs Committee during Tuesday’s presentation with Indian Affairs Cabinet Secretary Josett Monette.

Becenti also said the museum will be open to the public.

Sen. Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, asked whether they plan to consult Code Talkers and descendants who have long advocated for the museum to be built in Tse Bonito. They will be consulted, Becenti said, particularly in exhibit design planning.

Lawmakers pressed Becenti and Monette on a number of administrative details.

Navajo Prep approved a memorandum of agreement with the state in May, according to the Friday press release. The state is acting as a fiscal agent, Monette told lawmakers, and five agencies are involved in the effort.

Charley, the state senator from Acoma, asked Becenti whether she’s approving payments to contractors. Becenti said Navajo Prep is approving contracts with the architect and design firms, but they’re not privy to the full budget breakdown, like payment for any Navajo consultants.

“I have real concerns about you taking over an asset in three years that you’re not having direct oversight of at this point,” Charley said. “I know people have all of the best intentions, and we want this to happen. But I also want the people who are going to ultimately end up with this asset to have a say in how it’s coming together.”

The state will own the project while it’s under construction and will transfer to Navajo Prep after it’s finished. The state will also cover operational costs — estimated to be $600,000 per year — for the first several years before that too gets passed to the school.

Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, said she believes the Navajo Nation should own the museum.

“Every single one of the agencies that were named here is the state of New Mexico,” Roybal Caballero said about the state agencies involved in overseeing the planning. “Where is the sovereignty here? Where is the ownership? Does it belong to the state of New Mexico? Or does it belong to the Navajo Nation? Or does it belong to whomever the stakeholders believe it should belong to? That’s an important question.”

This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.