We Are The Warriors

For nearly 70 years, students and alumni of Wells High School in Maine have called themselves the “Warriors.” Their yearbook, the Abenaki, was named for the Indigenous people the town’s settlers first encountered in the 1600s. And the school mascot was a stoic Native American head in profile with braids and feathered headband. When, in 2017, public allegations emerged that Warriors fans made “Indian” whooping calls and donned “war paint,” the community began a process to decide whether to keep or drop their long-held mascot. We Are The Warriors follows the proceedings of the school district’s Mascot Advisory Committee and draws on interviews with residents of Wells, Maine to paint a profile of one community’s process as they confront their history and identity, challenging long-held misconceptions about the meanings behind their team’s name. 

The film’s Co-Directors, both graduates of Wells High School, gathered interviews and insights from residents of Wells and Wabanaki people from what is now Maine, Québec, and the Canadian Maritimes. Revelations about the town’s brutal colonial history and difficult conversations about the actual impact of the use of the mascot were key to changing hearts and minds of committee members. The film highlights evolving opinions of residents with a secondary focus on the history of the region. After months of informed consideration, the committee votes to recommend that the school board retire the mascot.  

We Are the Warriors serves as a case study for how one community contends with the legacy of settler colonialism and speaks to national issues regarding misunderstandings about the role and place of indigenous people in American society.