By some estimates, more than 44,000 Native Americans served during World War II, out of a total Native population of approximately 350,000 — a participation rate higher, per capita, than any other group.

They came home to reservations that had not fundamentally changed in their legal and economic status.

They returned to communities where they often could not vote — Native Americans did not have citizenship rights in all states until 1924, and the right to vote was withheld in some states until much later.

They returned to places where the federal policy framework that governed their lives was shifting again, toward termination and relocation and away from the tribal sovereignty principles that had characterized the Indian New Deal era of the 1930s.

The contrast between the contributions Native Americans made to the war effort and the conditions to which they returned was not invisible.