Danica Nava is an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and works as an executive assistant in the tech industry. She has her MBA from USC Marshall School of Business. She currently lives in Southern California with her husband and daughter.

It’s impossible to think of western or cowboy imagery without thinking of Native Americans.

When I was young, I would go to used bookstores with my grandma. Inside were stacks and stacks of mass market paperback romance novels. I would scan the shelves looking for Meg Cabot to read during the summer while I visited. As I perused the shelves, I saw a very common theme amongst the covers with women in the throes of passion, there were Native men—well white men in wigs, wearing loin clothes with bows and arrows—and these men were often clutching white women in some sort of landscape setting to reinforce the “Nativeness.” Fabio also being a recurring figure in some sort of hide and feathers.

The content of these novels was worse by far. In the pages of these romances were stereotypes of the Native warrior, often with titles explicitly stating their savagery, i.e. “My Savage Hero” or some derivative. In addition to the “savage warrior” were other stereotypes like the stoic or mystical medicine man. Or another classic— “the white Indian.” Meaning a white man who was either raised in proximity to a tribe or adopted into it. Like in The Last of the Mohicans—the book and many adaptations.

What is so interesting about these stories is that these “Native” men always ended up with white women. The Native women were also victims of harmful stereotypes perpetuated by ignorant and lazy writers. There was the “hag,” but they use a horrid slur and then the “princess,” daughter of a chief who helps the white cowboy hero and often dies. This imagery has been reinforced with over one hundred years of the cinema. You can read more about that in the nonfiction novel, Killing the Indian Maiden: Images of Native American Women in Film by M. Elise Marubbio.

The 1960s and 1970s was full of the “Spaghetti Westerns” where the directors wanted an easily recognizable Native image for audiences rather than portraying accurate regalia of the different tribes. So, the stereotype has been reinforced for decades with white actors in redface wearing wigs with headbands to help keep the wigs on while riding horses.

Then we got the resurgence of the Western, it comes in cycles, with the 1990s western. We had Tombstone, Dances with Wolves, the previously mentioned The Last of the Mohicans, Squanto, The Indian in the Cupboard. The list goes on and on. These films had bigger budgets, and most were actually filmed in America with Indigenous talent. But we didn’t own the narrative. These were all films written and directed by white men, still reinforcing these stereotypes.

When I had the idea of Love is a War Song back in 2021, I just had this feeling that the western/cowboy subgenre of romance would make a comeback based on how successful one show was—Yellowstone. It has been turned into numerous spinoffs and the studio paid the creator a quarter of a billion dollars to pump them out. The problem with this show is that it is still telling the story of the American west and the lie of manifest destiny through the lens of a white man and all the privilege and arrogance that encompasses.

I thought to myself, what would my cowboy story look like? I loved films like Flicka, Black Beauty, Hannah Montana: The Movie and the show Wildfire growing up. How could I bring that feeling of nostalgia back but also tell the story through the lens of a Native woman who grew up in America with little or just utterly offensive representation? I wanted to see someone like me be the star of this type of story without the caricatures of stereotypes.

Love is a War Song is my battle cry that we are here, thriving in America. America was ours first. You simply cannot tell a western or cowboy story and exclude Native Americans and other people of color. The vaqueros were the first cowboys, not white men, and certainly not billionaire white men. The American west was built on the backs of people of color. The west was full of LGBTQ+ individuals. To exclude us all in these stories is to erase our history and rewrite it. This is especially concerning in a time where we see more censorship, book bans, and the mass detention and deportation of citizens and legal residents of people of color. We have seen police target and detain Indigenous people of this country because of the lack of “proper” identification. Tribal identification cards are legal, proper, and many within the standards of the new “Real I.D.” Many states have refused to let Indigenous people vote with tribal identification.

There is still so much willful ignorance when it comes to Native Americans in the United States. This country was built on stolen land, and the films and novels of the past has been pure propaganda to try to rewrite this history.

Love is a War Song is my attempt to reclaim this subgenre and the “cowboy vs Indian” trope and narrative in my way. It is full of joy, laughter, color, heartbreak, and healing. I have been inspired by so many incredible writers who have always written about this time period with so much research and care like Beverly Jenkins, and authors who are writing about the contemporary west like Rebekuh Weatherspoon, Marcella Bell, and Sabrina Sol to name only a few.

Nuanced conversation about the west doesn’t mean that it can’t also be fun.

Love is a War Song by Danica Nava

When pop star Avery Fox’s photoshoot meant to showcase her Native American heritage brands her as a social reject, she moves to her estranged grandmother’s ranch in Oklahoma. Adjusting to life on the ranch is difficult, especially because of Lucas Iron Eyes, the man who runs the ranch—and can’t stand her. They soon learn that the ranch is at risk of being shut down and strike a deal: Avery will raise money for the ranch, and Lucas will help Avery reconnect with her heritage. But a simple deal quickly evolves into something more…

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