Identity Politics on The Road
Powwow Highway is a film where the politics of identity are continually racialized and compromised. Unlike other road movies we have watched throughout the course, the road is not a place of freedom for Buddy and Philbert. For the Native Aboriginal peoples of this country, freedom is a concept given to them by white society. Before Columbus "discovered" America, the First people could not even conceive of the term 'freedom' , for it was all they knew. For hundreds of years their land has been taken away and their tribes massacured in the name of liberty and justice for all. Sovereignty is something that Buddy and Philbert can only find when they are among their own people, The Cheyenne, on the land that has been 'given' to them by the United States government (but even on these lands freedom comes with jobs provided by the government). When the duo hit the road they are chastised and ridiculed as 'stupid Indian's'. Therefore, the road functions not as a road to freedom, but a road away from freedom, quite literally to the jail.