Shucking Oysters: Status Seekers

By Alex Allen 

Once again the Victoria Belfry Theatre is in hot water. This time it is over the controversial play “1939,” written by acclaimed “Métis” playwright Jani Lauzon based on her father’s experience at a residential school. Lauzon, who claimed her ancestry is Finnish on her mother’s side and Métis on her father’s, was recently found to be only French-Canadian on her father’s side – going back five generations. 

Wannabindians, race shifters, Indiginots. Commonly known as Pretendians, as in pretend to be an Indian, seem to be the fastest growing demographic in Canada. Practically every month someone is outed for falsely claiming an Indigenous heritage. And many assume the Indigenous identity for personal or professional gain only. Even the iconic Buffy Saint-Marie was challenged last year on her Indigenous ancestry. 

CBC News who aired the “Fifth Estate” episode on Saint-Marie said questioning a person’s “Indigeneity” requires great care and nuance. In deciding what stories to pursue, they always ask: Is this a person of significant influence? Has this person benefited from their claims of Indigenous identity? Has this person shaped public perceptions of what it means to be Indigenous in Canada? Has this person taken space or opportunities away from others who might rightly deserve them? If all the boxes have been ticked then they will dig deeper. 

They found Sainte-Marie’s birth certificate, that listed her parents as white. Family members in the US, including her younger sister, said that Sainte-Marie was not adopted and does not have Indigenous ancestry. She identified as Algonquin and Mi’kmaq yet earlier she said she was Cree and was adopted by a mother in Saskatchewan. 

Sainte-Marie, now in her eighties, did cryptically respond: “Being an ‘Indian’ has little to do with sperm tracking and colonial record keeping: it has to do with community, culture, knowledge, teachings, who claims you, who you love, who loves you and who’s your family.” 

Today, for the first time in Canadian history, there are “structural advantages” to being Indigenous. Huge perks. “People can get job opportunities. They can get scholarships and bursaries. They get roles in television and film,” says Indigenous scholar Kim TallBear, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate professor at the UofA. Indigenous author and playwright Drew Hayden Taylor shared the irony that not that long ago some First Nations people would go out of their way to say they weren’t Indigenous.

Tallbear says what’s problematic, are those settlers who are adopted into Indigenous communities as adults, as a way of honouring and welcoming them. “What many don’t understand is that you are being invited into a family, a community, that wants you, but not into the larger culture. Nor can you speak for it. There’s a big difference. I have an honourary doctorate. But I am not a doctor. Do you see the point?”

Recently…Uof W professor Julie Nagam falsified her Métis ancestry. Carrie Bourassa at the USask falsely claimed she was of Métis, Anishinaabe and Tlingit ancestry. Prominent scholar and former judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond claimed Cree ancestry. Former Emily Carr teacher Gina Adams, falsely claimed she was an Indigenous hybrid artist of Ojibwa Anishinaabe and Lakota descent. Director Michelle Latimer of the CBC Indigenous television series, Trickster, claimed she was from the Kitigan Zibi First Nation. Amie Wolf, UBC adjunct professor, was fired about her Mi’kmaq identity claims. Vianne Timmons, president of Memorial University falsely said she was descended from Mi’kmaq First Nations peoples. Noted UC Berkley scholar Elizabeth Hoover posted a mea culpa declaring herself a white woman who “mistakenly” built a career on being of Mohawk and Mi’kmaq descent. Can you see the pattern here?

In all of these cases, they not only faked their First Nations ancestry – they also based their entire lucrative careers and lives around their false Indigenous connections. Pretendians, Kevin Yuill noted, are especially “rife in academia, where there is enormous pressure on universities to hire more Indigenous people.” Institutions will openly accept people who claim to have Indigenous backgrounds – better than awkwardly asking for proof of status. 

Back at the Belfry, the show did go on. Since that decision, both an Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff member quit. Lauzon eventually admitted that her use of “Métis” was not meant to refer to the historic Métis Nation but rather as a general term for the mixed Indigenous ancestry she believed she has. In a subsequent email, Lauzon wrote that she was in the process of reaching out to “a specialist in Indigenous heritage.” 

There have been many discussions within Indigenous communities about how to deal with these race shifters. One woman suggested an act of Parliament, making it an offence to falsely claim Indigenous heritage. Others want to rely on the traditional method of asking three simple questions: Do you consider yourself Indigenous? Does the community consider you Indigenous? And where does your family come from? The last one is often the most difficult to fake.

And what’s with the proliferation of female identity thieves? In a Reddit thread someone wrote: “Female Pretendians in the 1970s were mostly into eroticized Indian glamour prominent in the counter-cultural movements, while modern wannabe Indianettes are almost exclusively materialistically oriented career- and money-grabbing egotists.” Another helpfully explained: “Women can just wear their hair long, straighten it and dye it darker if necessary, put on some weird clothes, and it is kinda hard to actually tell.” Got it.