Reservation Love Song

In “Reservation Love Song,” the speaker refers to his car as "my one-eyed Ford” (Line 4), which represents possession—it’s something that the speaker and not the government owns. The car, however, also represents America as Ford is an American car company founded by Henry Ford. With this reading, the vehicle symbolizes dispossession as well since it links this possession to the United States—the country that has killed, displaced, and marginalized Indigenous people like the speaker. The poem begins with contradictions like this and continues with such symbolism as it progresses. The name Ford also addresses another type of representation. Ford can also be a nod to John Ford, the famous director of mid-20th-century western films like The Searchers (1956) and Stagecoach (1939). Such films glamorized frontier and cowboy figures and perpetuated stereotypes about Indigenous people that are still prevalent in popular culture. This careless representation of Indigenous people also relates to casting, with white actors playing Indigenous characters, Indigenous people playing members from different tribes, wearing the wrong kind of clothes, and speaking the language of the wrong tribe. Thus, with one word, “Ford,” Alexie summons the problematic cinematic history of Indigenous people, the stereotypes perpetuated by Americans, and a feeling of otherness that stems from these stereotypes. Alexie links these connections to the carelessness of government agencies in Stanza 2.

The term “one-eyed” additionally refers to the damage and injury done to Indigenous people. The car has lost one of its symbolic eyes, just as Indigenous people have lost body parts, lives, livelihoods, and land due to the actions of European and American colonizers.