She maintains that she is “proud of my Indigenous-American identity and the deep ties I have to Canada and my Piapot family.”
She further explained, “What I know about my Indigenous ancestry I learned from my mother” and concluded, “I may not know where I was born, but I know who I am.”
Music Industry Recognition
Despite the controversy, major music organizations in Canada have not revoked Sainte-Marie’s numerous awards.
She has won seven Juno Awards, including Best Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording (1997), Aboriginal Recording of the Year (2009), Aboriginal Album of the Year (2016), and Indigenous Music Album of the Year (2018).
In 1995, she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and received the Juno Humanitarian Award in 2017. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (CARAS) has not responded to inquiries about whether her awards will be reconsidered.
The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted Sainte-Marie in 2019, and her song Universal Soldier was recognized in 2005.
