Canada

It really saddens me to hear that you feel/felt that way about your identity/origins. I value the existence of you and your culture.

My thoughts:

As a settler Canadian I've been told blood quantum is a racist colonial concept, and what really makes a person indigenous is if they are embraced as a member of a first nation community.

So my initial reaction (ie to the revelation she has european roots) was:

It's a person's life that makes them indigenous, not their genes. It doesn't really matter if she was born off reserve to settler parents, if she's a member of a first nation.

The article talks about how 1962 when she was in her twenties she asked a Cree family to give her an 'Indian Name', and adopt her into their family. She says they did.

BUT It seems likely to me that she (fraudulently) presented herself to the Cree family as a 'scoop' victim to receive a sympathy name.

And then:

In the space of those 10 months [1962-1963], she was referred to as Algonquin, full-blooded Algonquin, Mi’kmaq, half-Mi’kmaq and Cree.

So clearly the naming/adoption didn't start as anything serious.

It seems to me she received the sympathy naming, then over the course of years wormed her way into the family. Actually it's pretty grotesque because the family had had a daughter Buffy's age taken from them so this was like extreme manipulation of the vulnerable.

All this is to say: Buffy didn't grow up facing the challenges of an indigenous child. Her purported accession to the Cree nation was likely based on fraud and grotesque emotional manipulation.

She has received so much of what was reserved for people that had to overcome real, actual oppression/prejudice and state abuse and trauma. Is this the biggest case of cultural appropriation in history?

This is what I didn't get after watching the fifth estate program.

Santamaria (which is what I'll call her from now on) was born American and at one point in her career she is identified as Canadian .... which didn't matter much at first.

But then the Canadian government gave her awards and put her to the order of Canada ..... doesn't anyone look into backgrounds and history before bestowing these awards? ... or do they just hand them out based on your bank account?

Brought you by "Keep America Beautiful"

The evidence is pretty damning.