A detailed investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has raised questions about the indigenous persona of singer/songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Sainte-Marie has been feted as the first Indigenous person to win an Academy Award for cowriting the song Up Where We Belong for the film An Officer and a Gentleman.
Sainte-Marie, 82, has claimed that she was born on Tribal land and adopted by white parents. The CBC countered that in a report published Friday and in an accompanying episode of the documentary series The Fifth Estate. The media outlet obtained a birth certificate saying Sainte-Marie was born to parents of European ancestry in Massachusetts.
The CBC reported that the birth certificate from Stoneham, Mass. showed “Beverly Jean Santamaria” and her parents listed as white. The CBC said it had the document authenticated by Stoneham town clerk Maria Sagarino.
Sainte-Marie, alerted to the revelations that would be coming, issued a statement posted to social media Thursday.
Sainte-Marie has been feted as the first Indigenous person to win an Academy Award for cowriting the song Up Where We Belong for the film An Officer and a Gentleman.
Sainte-Marie, 82, has claimed that she was born on Tribal land and adopted by white parents. The CBC countered that in a report published Friday and in an accompanying episode of the documentary series The Fifth Estate. The media outlet obtained a birth certificate saying Sainte-Marie was born to parents of European ancestry in Massachusetts.
The CBC reported that the birth certificate from Stoneham, Mass. showed “Beverly Jean Santamaria” and her parents listed as white. The CBC said it had the document authenticated by Stoneham town clerk Maria Sagarino.
Sainte-Marie, alerted to the revelations that would be coming, issued a statement posted to social media Thursday.
- 10/28/2023
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
CBC newsmagazine The Fifth Estate has aired its Buffy Sainte-Marie exposé.
The hourlong documentary episode, presented by senior investigative reporter Geoff Leo, alleges that the singer-songwriter — considered the first Indigenous winner of an Academy Award — has been fraudulently posing as Native throughout her 60-year career.
While the specifics about Sainte-Marie’s background varied as they appeared in articles and other materials over the years — The Fifth Estate found news clippings referring to her as Algonquin, Mi’kmaq and Cree — eventually her accepted (and authorized) biography was that she was born in 1941 on Cree land in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and removed from her birth family and adopted by a white American family, the Sainte-Maries, as part of a government policy known as the Sixties Scoop. Later, as a young adult, she reconnected with the Cree people and was adopted by descendants of Chief Piapot according to Cree ways.
But...
The hourlong documentary episode, presented by senior investigative reporter Geoff Leo, alleges that the singer-songwriter — considered the first Indigenous winner of an Academy Award — has been fraudulently posing as Native throughout her 60-year career.
While the specifics about Sainte-Marie’s background varied as they appeared in articles and other materials over the years — The Fifth Estate found news clippings referring to her as Algonquin, Mi’kmaq and Cree — eventually her accepted (and authorized) biography was that she was born in 1941 on Cree land in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and removed from her birth family and adopted by a white American family, the Sainte-Maries, as part of a government policy known as the Sixties Scoop. Later, as a young adult, she reconnected with the Cree people and was adopted by descendants of Chief Piapot according to Cree ways.
But...
- 10/28/2023
- by Rebecca Sun
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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