Councillor may not be indigenous after all
Verdun councillor Marie-Josée Parent was lauded in 2017 as the city’s first indigenous elected representative, and a year later was given the city’s reconciliation portfolio. But she’s stepped down from that position now that genealogists have queried her having any indigenous ancestry at all.
Although Parent has apparently done some admirable work in advocacy for native people, one of the genealogists is accusing her of cultural appropriation and theft. As the CBC piece notes, a lot of Canadians (Americans too, from what I’ve seen) have a family tradition of indigenous ancestry which might not hold up to scrutiny. Parent was very likely acting in good faith.
Michael Black 22:46 on 2019-11-05 Permalink
No, lots of people have folk tales about native ancestry. In the case of Cherokee there was actually a period when Europeans became Cherokee, to get land or some other advantage, but never had any actual claim or relationship. The whole “Eastern metis” thing is people with some vague story about some long past native ancestor, and many of those share the same ancesfor,who turns out to be a European woman, not native.
Mi’kmaq is almost a giveaway, though I can’t remember if I wondered in this case. A lot of people of Acadian heritage also claim a Mi’kmaq ancestor.
Even if someone has a traceable ancestor, it doesn’t make them native.
But what bugs People is that too often someone has this folk tale and nothing more, but think that means they can spout off, usually without knowing anything. I once saw someone on tv talking about a musician wearing a headdress, and she said “I think it’s great, I have native ancestry”. They are perpetuating wrong, rather than doing good.
Yes this woman has done good, but she didn’t need to claim anything, or at least just say “family history says I have a native ancestor”.
I personally find it odd that people make claims but have never pursued it. I never knew until I was 22, and that came with a family tree. I never had folk tales. It seemed too far in the past, so I rarely mentioned it. I looked and never came across details. That changed when the internet offered up so.much about my family. I do have distant cousins in Washington state, but I also know so much about my faemiky in Red River. A CBC story a few years ago about a musician revealed she was descended from Annie Bannantyne. I knew some one had married a Bannantyne, oops, it was my great, great grandfather after Henrietta died. The musician is Metis.
People should claim their ancestors, because it reveals a different story. They, usually women, shouldn’t be erased. But it’s not a cool thing, or to get some perceived status, it’s obligation. An obligation to pay attention, to at least learn a few words of the language, to know as much as you can about the cousins as you can but also native people in general. It’s about but empathy and understanding acting like a distant cousin, not wearing stereotypes that aren’t yours.
I know so much about my family that that’s clout enough. I can invoke my ancestors to tell a story, I don’t need it to legitimize something.
Michael
Kate 08:23 on 2019-11-06 Permalink
Michael, I’m not clear what rights or duties you think come with knowledge of indigenous ancestry, as opposed to a vague family memory of some intermarriage in the past.
We both know that it isn’t always going to be easy to determine from documents whether any given ancestor had native blood, since many indigenous people adopted English, French or Scots surnames generations ago.
DNA testing might give a clue, but when we’re talking one ancestor generations back, it doesn’t add up to much, and testing is only comparative to a pool of other people; a lot of “status Indians” are probably not full-blood either by now.
But I’m not only grilling you, I’m wondering what our society thinks as well. How indigenous do you have to be to advocate for indigenous people? How much ancestry do you have to be able to prove to be able to claim to be a member of a community? And so on.
meezly 13:47 on 2019-11-06 Permalink
Those were exactly the questions author Joseph Boyden, as well as his critics and supporters, had when he was embroiled in a very similar controversy re: his First Nations ancestry a few years ago. Boyden’s case is especially fascinating (for me at least, as I’m interested in race and cultural identity) and there are tons of excellent articles that explore whether he, as a person of mixed ancestry but no official status, has a right to identify as indigenous or not.
I think the real question is – if you are mixed race but have no clear membership of any community, and have clearly benefited from the white establishment who particularly embrace non-white talent with light-skinned looks cuz, let’s face it, that is how the world works (and there is a loong history of this) – you must ask yourself, whose voice and opportunity are you taking away who DOES have the right to be the spokesperson or award recipient? It doesn’t matter how much advocacy you’ve put in, or how talented you are, if you are claiming an identity that is based on shaky ground, ie. oral history, and this identity claim is giving you opportunities that would not otherwise be available to you, then you are appropriating something, if not downright impersonating.
John B 15:24 on 2019-11-06 Permalink
Reporting on how this story came to be would be interesting. This looks like an attack on someone who identifies as and truly believes she is indigenous, and according to the linked CBC piece has family documentation to back it up.
According to the genealogist’s Facebook post “some people asked him” if Mme. Parent’s ancestors were Métis-Canadian. Who & why? And once he did the research is it appropriate to be publicly posting the full family tree of a living person? This is especially true since Mr. P-Thisdale based his research on parish registers, which are likely to have errors because of false paternity and social pressures over the past several hundred years, (for example, a mother may tell the priest that her husband is the father of a child, then later when the father pas passed write a letter telling the child who their real father is).
With the potential for inaccuracy it was irresponsible, at best, for Mr. P-Thisdale to share the family tree publicly, especially with the very real-world consequences of doing so. A more appropriate action would be to share it with Mme. Parent privately, or if he truly believes she’s appropriating indigenous culture for personal gain perhaps with an investigative journalist who will find more information to prove or disprove that theory.
Mr. P-Thisdale is very clear in his article that “THIS FAMILY HAS NO NATIVE ANCESTORS WHATSOEVER” (yes, he used all caps). If Mme. Parent can prove otherwise this seems like a pretty clear libel case to me.
Kate 16:10 on 2019-11-06 Permalink
You make some very good points, John B.
It would not surprise me if the “some people” came from Ensemble.
Chris 11:02 on 2019-11-07 Permalink
>How much ancestry do you have to be able to prove to be able to claim to be a member of a community? And so on.
Very much questions of our time. How (fe)male do you have to be to claim to be (fe)male? These days many answer: as much or as little as you want. Someone named Rachel Dolezal famously tried the same with race. In that case, many thought self-identification insufficient. Barack Obama is widely called black even though only half black. A fascinating topic. (And I’m staking no positions pro/con here.)
meezly 11:03 on 2019-11-07 Permalink
I agree that P-Thisdale may not have gone about this process in a respectful nor responsible manner, but it would have been helpful to hear from at least one First Nations perspective on how they felt about someone with no proof of Mi’kmaq ancestry accepted an advisory role for indigenous issues.
I’d like to know if MJ Parent ever clarified the media coverage of her Mi’kmaq identity, at the very least to cover her bases, saying look, I have not researched my genealogy thoroughly, but according to my family history, etc. I MAY have this ancestry, instead of saying nothing and ‘going with the flow’ because this was working for her career trajectory.
With the exposure of Rachel Dolezal, she was someone who truly identified as African-American and to this day, still feels she has not been treated fairly. This is an extreme case, but I feel this is not that different from MJ Parent’s reasoning.
John B 14:54 on 2019-11-07 Permalink
@meezly – from the CBC article “Parent said, without wanting to go into detail, that the information doesn’t align with documents her family has.” and “She said her family’s situation is not easy to understand. They don’t know which community they’re from and have yet to finish their family tree.” – it sounds like she may have proof, or something pretty close to it.
> it would have been helpful to hear from at least one First Nations perspective
That’s a surprising omission from the reporting. Both P-Thisdale and the journalist who wrote the CBC article appear to identify as indigenous, (they also both worked for the same paper at some point…) You would think one of them could track down another member of the community to give a quote or two.
Michael Black 16:52 on 2019-11-07 Permalink
Rats. I typed in a long reply and didn’t actually press tge reply button before leaving. I’ll try again later.
meezly 11:30 on 2019-11-08 Permalink
@John B – I’m sure Parent’s family is complex, however, what I’m trying to get at is that Parent was publicly lauded as the first Indigenous city councillor in 2017.
If she was lauded based solely on her admirable credentials, then maybe this controversy would not have come up. But she went on record as the 1st Indigenous city councilor. If Parent’s family history was unclear and no one in her family knows which community they are from, then, as a public figure, she needed to do her due diligence in researching her ancestry.
I think as a journalist, you need to maintain neutrality, but if P-Thisdale identifies as indigenous, I can probably see why he questioned Parent’s lineage. What may be contentious is that Parent had the privilege of being fully integrated in the establishment without the obstacles that someone with clear indigenous ancestry would experience. And would the indigenous community be ok with someone who has been appointed with a reconciliation portfolio in this case?