"We are Cheyenne."
Giving one’s identity the power of open mobility often means exposing it to situations where it must be confronted and reconsidered. In Jonathan Wacks’ 1989 film Powwow Highway, the “identity politics� of two longtime friends are taken from an American Indian reservation and onto the winding road; thus, what it means for each to be a Cheyenne tribal member is given central focus. As Professor Zita explained in lecture, “identity politics� are founded on the shared experiences of injustice within certain social groups and aim to re-secure political and/or spiritual freedoms within a larger context: by asserting ways of understanding, challenging dominant oppressive characterizations, and, especially, shaping a goal of greater self-determination. Both Buddy Red Bow and Philbert Bono are physically en route in Philbert’s “war pony� (a junky old car he names “Protector�), but on two very different road trips. Red Bow, a hot-tempered activist, is on a journey of political identity: in trying to get his framed sister out of jail as soon as possible, he hopes to return to the reservation so he can protest a looming “white man� corporation’s on-site uranium mining. His narrower notion of what it means to be Cheyenne involves something similar to the struggle of those at the early-70s Wounded Knee resistance, and his own pain has overshadowed the beauty of a now-dying culture. Opposing Red Bow's path of personal destruction is the much more peaceful Philbert, on a spiritual identity quest to become intrinsically bound to what it means to be Cheyenne (before outside influence encouraged his people to turn away from the past, that is). Both men voluntarily and involuntarily feel they must be representatives for their heritage, although it means different things to each; and, thanks to their Sante Fe-or-bust road trip, both end up seriously contemplating their constructed Cheyenne identities whether they mean to or not.