I’m full blooded Indigenous … I was born into my family, I have a status card, I grew up in my home community and my first language is Ojibway-Cree … I’m a brown skinned darked hair Indian … the first 12 years of my life, all I ever knew was my Indigenous culture, family and language.
The whole Buffy Sainte-Marie fiasco is not so much about who can identify, who should say what or who claim identity and how it should be accepted or rejected by anyone.
The biggest issue I have with this is … she lied and continues to lie. If she were more honest and forthcoming about who she really is and why she did what she did … everything would be more acceptable and we could continue to respect the work that she has created.
The questions surrounding all of this is a lot more difficult to answer when millions of dollars of awards, legal issues, and entertainment income are at stake.
I know the entire spectrum of Native identity and I know and am friends with a whole bunch of them. I know Native people with full ancestry who for one reason or another don’t have official status. I know people who were born into families through marriage and have no bit of Native DNA but have full status because their families and their communities accept them. I know people with majority ancestry who can’t get recognition and I know people with one distant ancestor five generations behind them which allowed them to gain status.
The biggest problem with Santa Maria is not her identity or how she is identifies, who identifies her or in what way … the biggest issue is her dishonesty. She started from a lie, grew that lie and now lives off that lie and no one wants to talk about it. If she had been honest from the start … hell if she were honest about it now … it would be a lot easier for everyone to get over this controversy.