Native war heroes were swept up in President Donald Trump’s recent DEI directive at the Pentagon, erasing their legacies from its annals of military history.
While some scrubbed photos and stories have since been restored, this three-part series from KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio highlights the administration’s impacts on the families and descendants of Arizona icons Ira Hayes, Lori Piestewa and the Navajo Code Talkers.
Peter MacDonald
From Ira Hayes to Lori Piestewa, Arizona’s Indigenous war heroes were literally erased from the annals of military history last month as part of the Trump administration’s attack on DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — within the U.S. Department of Defense.
Gabriel Pietrorazio/KJZZ
In the fallout, some of the Hayes descendants are stepping up. These relatives were reminded why they keep on sharing his story — even eight decades later — from where he grew up on the Gila River Indian Community.
Gabriel Pietrorazio/KJZZ
Her death in the opening days of the Iraq War in 2003 shook her home state of Arizona and led to the renaming of a freeway and mountain peak. More than two decades later, the 23-year-old Army specialist, a Hopi from Tuba City, was swept up in a recent executive order striking DEI references from the U.S. Department of Defense.
Ira Hayes is arguably Arizona’s most iconic World War II hero, as one of six Marines who famously raised the American flag at Iwo Jima.
More stories from Gabriel Pietrorazio
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The Gila River Indian Community has strict rules about accessing the abandoned 16,500-acre site, originally known as the Rivers Relocation Center. Now, it’s more commonly called Gila River, and the camp’s location is mainly off-limits. -
Hundreds showed up for this year’s pilgrimage in late October, which began with a ceremony to honor those who died at the Japanese American internment camp known as the Colorado River Relocation Center — more commonly called Poston. -
Long before World War II, the U.S. Army rounded up Native Americans onto reservations — drawing in their new boundaries. And in Arizona, the federal government once again looked to those lands for another minority population — Japanese Americans — also forcibly rounded up by the military after the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941. -
Sunday marked the 84th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing – a shocking attack that drew the U.S. into World War II and unleashed a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria that had been bubbling for decades. -
After finally being sworn in following a historic seven-week delay, Arizona Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva is using her first legislative act to fulfill a campaign promise she made to tribes in Arizona and across Indian Country.
