Jennifer Podemski: The Storyteller

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Women of ill repute with your hosts, Wendy Mesley and Maureen Holloway.

Maureen Holloway  0:07  
When they when was the last time that you cry?

Wendy Mesley  0:11  
Well, that's a very personal question because I don't cry very often.

Maureen Holloway  0:15  
I don't either.

Wendy Mesley  0:17  
I don't. I wept uncontrollably actually watching the series Little Bird by Jennifer  Podemski. If you're watching YouTube, that's the J up there, she's coming up. It's on Crave her whole series. You can see it now. It's the it's the very first original drama series. It's been done by Crave and it's the first more importantly, it's the first real series about the 60s Scoop, which is basically Indigenous kids taken from their families, not just in the 60s, but in the 70s and 80s. And anyway, thousands of kids taken from Indigenous families given to adopting families. And I cried and not just because I'm a big suck, but also-

Maureen Holloway  0:54  
But that too.

Wendy Mesley  0:57  
But I'm a mum and in this tale, not only is there like a massive wrong, there are two moms and two families torn, torn apart. So it's it's quite compelling.

Maureen Holloway  1:09  
There's a lot to cry about. It's a really moving story. It's beautifully told it's not a documentary, although it could be it's a dramatization. I'm four episodes in and John and I have been watching it religiously. And he you know what he cried, he cries at the drop of a hat and I love that about him. And I try not to drop hats because it gets messy. But to my shame, I did not know anything about the 60 Scoop. I knew about residential schools, but I never really, like so many people. I never really thought, how did those kids get there? How, what happened? How were they taken? And Little Bird addresses that?

Wendy Mesley  1:46  
Yeah, it's quite something that it's I mean, it's a great tale not just that people need to learn what happened but it's also it's an amazing story, but it made me think of that the the podcast the interview, the chat that we had with Cindy Blackstock. So she's an activist, she's fought a lot for Indigenous kids. And she said that she was always shocked by how many Canadians thought that when she was growing up, she thought so many Canadians think they're great that they're doing the right thing, but they actually don't know squat.

Maureen Holloway  2:15  
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, because you know, at best the white people at the time, were thinking that they were saving these Indigenous kids.

Wendy Mesley  2:25  
Yeah, well, I'm sure Jennifer  Podemski, who's going to be on our podcast, she's got a lot of thoughts on that. She's the executive producer of Little Bird. She's half Jewish, half indigenous, and which is sort of belongs with the story. You might know her as an actor she was she was in Dance Me Outside. That was her first big break. She's appeared on Degrassi. She made the movie Empire Of Dirt, which was nominated for a bazillion awards, won a couple. But she became a producer, mostly because she wanted to tell Indigenous stories, and she thought that Indigenous people should be telling those stories.

Maureen Holloway  3:00  
What a crazy idea. Actually, almost the entire production crew behind Little Bird is made up of well, mostly women, and many of them are of mixed heritage themselves. But the story, I think, is it will anyone can relate to it. I have a friend who recently met her. She was adopted and she met her family mixed results about that. Be careful what you wish for. But yeah, it's little, what we're trying to tell you is watch Little Bird and then join us for this conversation.

Wendy Mesley  3:35  
So Jennifer Podemski is going to join us now. I hope we had a couple technical issues. But there you are, hi Jennifer. 

Maureen Holloway  3:41  
There you are. 

Wendy Mesley  3:42  
Actor, Producer. Yeah. Oh, it's wonderful to see you wonderful.

Maureen Holloway  3:46  
Writer. And we're not we're not just blowing sunshine, we both just so moved by this, this, this amazing. I was gonna say wonderful story, but it's heartbreaking. And you're getting universally the same reaction that people are like, wow.

Jennifer Podemski  4:02  
Yes, thank you. Thank you for that. I'm so glad it's over. First of all, it was a really long journey. I'm recovering from telling that story. So it's good to be talking about it in retrospect and of course with such a great group of people on a great podcast, so I'm excited to tell you all the things you want to know.

Maureen Holloway  4:25  
Okay, well, where to start?

Wendy Mesley  4:28  
It must have been so so painful to tell that story because I didn't like it's as I was saying to Maureen it's it's you know, it's a great story for people to learn about but it's also just an amazing story and why it was never told I don't know like and it is something that I think that everyone can relate to because you know, like, one of the most it sounds so stupid in comparison but I was so torn when I took Kate who was five who was the age of the little girl in the in the story. It was basically torn from her parents, everybody's screaming, I was screaming when I took Kate to kindergarten and the kindergarten teacher stole her out my arms.

Maureen Holloway  5:07  
But you got her back.

Wendy Mesley  5:11  
I got her back, like an hour later, like in your story, or in many of the stories of the 60 scoop that the kids never see their parents again. The mums the dads never see their kids again, it's just.

Maureen Holloway  5:23  
Jen, let's go back to why this happened. Like I said, we know about the residential schools, but what was the thinking behind removing all these children from their families.

Jennifer Podemski  5:33  
Basically, in short, what what happened was residential schools had, you know, 100 year legacy and by the 60s, 50s, 60s, the management of the removal of Indigenous kids from families transferred from the Federal kind of pocket to the province to the provinces, and that became a part of the the greater child welfare system. And at that time, the motivation specifically in Saskatchewan, probably because of the very densely populated reserves and you know, communities and cities of Indigenous people. There was a program called Adopt An Indian Métis, which was a provincially funded program that was designed to kind of expedite the removal and either adoption and sometimes sale of Indigenous kids into the general public, ideally, with non Indigenous families, as a, you know, an effort to do the same thing that residential school was doing, which was to remove the Indian from the child and to absorb those children and absolve them of all their culture and identity and absorb them into the body politic of Canada. And oftentimes, in Europe, and in in the, in the States, they went all over the world for that goal of essentially removing the Indian problem, which is, you know, what was originally stated in the Constitution. You know, when John A. Macdonald, ended up signing it and saying, we have an Indian problem, and this is how we're going to deal with it. So it sort of filtered, filtered through a bunch of different incarnations, and the 60s Scoop was kind of the, the version that we saw during the 60s, 70s and 80s. And today, we actually call it the millennial scoop, because there are more children in care today, Indigenous children in care today than there were in all of residential school, or the 60s Scoop.

Maureen Holloway  7:37  
That is stunning in the negative sense that alone, I mean, have we not evolved? Have we not learned anything? Do we not have any respect? That is really shocking. The kids were living on the family when they were all together, and Saskatchewan were living on the reservation, and they didn't have running water, and they didn't have electricity. They were off grid and that was the reasoning used by the powers that be to remove the kids that they were being brought up with no regard to family relationships, just like this is the reason you can't raise kids like this. But they're there. This is an ongoing problem. They're still reservations, but they don't have clean water. They don't have electricity and you know, as a result, ongoing drug abuse and so on, from what you've been through, and you've been through a lot. How do we change course?

Jennifer Podemski  8:27  
Oh, that is probably a question you know, that I can't fully, we cannot leave this podcast today with an answer.

Maureen Holloway  8:36  
Didn't think so.

Jennifer Podemski  8:40  
You know, I think it's it is really people like Cindy Blackstock, you were mentioning at the beginning, people who are really on the front lines of dismantling the kind of systemic and structural racism that does exist to create spaces where Indigenous people can create policies that are designed really to rebuild community and address some of those issues that are a direct result of the removal of children and dismantling of families. And we do see results today. This shows that the needle has moved in the in the right direction, in favor of Indigenous people and communities, but I think it's so minimal and a lot of work has to be done. I mean, for me, it's just storytelling. I think that we have a lot of reparations to take on and doing that through storytelling is, you know, really the only way I know how to do it.

Wendy Mesley  9:39  
So what's so fascinating because we've interviewed a couple of people, white people who grew up with, you know, no running water and they did fine. They, their kids were not taken away from them. So you know, I think that there are there are lots of reasons and and now you finally you've got Crave, you've done the series you've got The Shine Network, which is a digital component for getting the stories out. And things are, things are changing and I'm wondering, like for you just how different are things like you talk now about when you began, you were the only indigenous person who was basically offered racist stereotype roles. And you just have to know we've got to change, and now you're calling people and everybody's busy. So I mean, things are things are changing.

Jennifer Podemski  10:27  
Yeah, I definitely, I definitely see the change, you know, I can see just within the community that I'm in, you know, there's a lot of a lot of us working on our own stuff, which is great. But on the other side, I think there is still kind of a dearth of Indigenous stories and I kind of use the metric of like how Canadians respond to, let's say, missing and murdered Indigenous women, as an epidemic as a crisis, that there's really not a lot being said by Canadians. And I think that that is a direct result of the way the narrative has kind of cemented this idea that we are not that that we are less than human right over across time, I think that that narrative still exists. So it is changing and there is a little bit of, of more hope, maybe than I had, even last year. But there's a lot of work to do and I think a lot of it has to do with you know, changing that narrative. And that narrative is more of like a social a social narrative, where, when things happen to people, most people stand up and pay attention and, you know, stand in solidarity with groups that are that bad things are happening too. But that's so rarely happens with Indigenous people because I think, you know, our absence in the education system, our absence in the political system is just an example of like, us being invisible, kind of by design. So there's, there's a lot of work to do. But to to not be such a downer, I think that it's such a good, you know, it's such a good time, we are in such a good time for people to work together, you know, like creating partnerships that are that are Indigenous-led to enhance, you know, visibility and equity and all of those things that feel so good when a society is able to do them properly. I think that today, we we definitely feel like that we've we've had a big shake down with, you know, since COVID. And just things feel kind of, I think everyone feels a little bit destabilized for one reason or another. And this is a good time if we were going to restabilized to do it in a more focused, united way with where the people who have can support those who don't have and the people who, who can offer space can you no offer that space to people who don't have any space.

Maureen Holloway  13:05  
You are half Jewish and half Ojibwe. That's the case with with your protagonist with Ester or Bezhig, she's is her Indigenous name. I was really interested in the scenes that took place in Montreal, with Esther's Jewish family, the her engagement party and I grew up in Montreal, I was the only non Jewish kid in the theater school and I was the only non French kid and a French school. So, you know, I know a little bit about not being neither fish nor fowl, right, not quite fitting into both. I desperately wanted to be Jewish, because all my Jewish friends had the best family life and would invite me back and the food was great and so on. So I grew up with that, but I was thinking so what is what was your experience like? Did you feel comfortable both worlds? Or is there one that that you feel is more you, for lack of a better way of asking? 

Jennifer Podemski  13:59  
Well, first, I just want to clarify a Little Bit is not my story. So that is completely fictionalized story.

Maureen Holloway  14:07  
But you have the same background. 

Jennifer Podemski  14:07  
Yeah, but I am Jewish. Like my dad is Israeli Jewish, my grandfather is a Holocaust survivor migrant, my mother is from Musqueam First Nation in Saskatchewan. Whereas Esther is fully Indigenous from a community in Saskatchewan and raised in a Jewish family. So in terms of, you know, the identity, the the complexity of her identity, I did use so much of my own experience being stuck between those two worlds. However, you know, for me, it was always just not fitting into anywhere, mostly because of the way that I looked. I'm clearly not white or Jewish looking and I'm not fully native looking. So I was just always sort of questioned about who I was and like, why do I look like this and that kind of in childhood makes you feel no not a part of things. So without the racism, most of the racism I experienced was really like, as an Asian person, I was like, definitely received a lot of anti-Asian kind of racism growing up. I think because my mom was so far away from her family and we lived in a very Jewish area, at in Toronto in North York. And my dad's family was very consistently there, you know, we had Shabbat dinner every Friday night, we, we were with his family with my grandparents and my aunt, all the time, whereas my mom's family lived in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. So until we moved out west, we didn't really spend a lot of time with her family. So she was very isolated and I know how difficult that was for her, and how lonely that was for her and so much of Esther is was inspired by my mother and me witnessing her alienation growing up, and also my own sense of conflict in our conflict about you know, where I belonged. So all of those things are, are really what, what I was able to bring to Esther's character. And then of course, we had real lived experiences of 60s Scoop survivors, who helped us to build the PTSD and, you know, the story of being taken from your family and, and how that sort of plays out. Yeah, I think, you know, at 50 I can say, I don't feel like I'm half of anything, I'm just fully, fully who I am. And that is, you know, a long history of Anishinaabe people in a long mix of, you know, Cree and Métis and Lenape and, you know, however far it goes back on my mom's side, and then on my dad's side, you know, the Polish and Russian legacy that was completely on my grandfather's side, gone, except for one brother. So I have a bunch of family in Israel. So my family is all over and I feel very much, I feel very much connected to both of my histories that I come from. And it works for me as a storyteller, I think that that was probably why I'm here is to somehow become a bridge between divided communities and divided people. And you know, in that way, I think storytelling is a very powerful connector of, of human beings and human experiences.

The Women Of Ill Repute.

I was really struck by that by, by the end of of the series that there is so much love for, for both families, even though her real family is the Indigenous family that she was stolen from she was raised by a Jewish family, but there is a very telling moment in it when she says to her Jewish mother, but it was wrong. And and the mother is saying, no, no, no, we were saving you from a life of poverty. We're saving you, which is what so many ignorant or white or well-meaning or however you want to name them people, people thought . But it was but it was wrong. So is that changing now? 

Maureen Holloway  18:36  
Well, that's going back to what we were talking off the top again, about the road of to hell beibg. Yeah, people still think that Aboriginal kids grew up in the worst possible circumstances and that's not necessarily untrue. But it's also not necessarily true.

Jennifer Podemski  18:54  
Yeah, I think that, you know, there there are extraordinary and disproportionate realities that indigenous families are facing today. And a lot of it has to do with poverty and a lot of it has to do with you know, even if you're 20 minutes from Toronto, on a on a reserve, you may have no clean water, no access to clean water, which is something that every human being should have, you know, you would think that that should come to people so easily. But that is one thing. I think that is indicative of how communities on reserve are being treated through policy. So there are those extraordinary circumstances, but I think what, what we were aiming to do was to show one very specific story, because there are obviously tens of thousands of stories, each one feels worse than the other. And it's hard. It's hard to it's hard to know which one was going to work most effectively on television, because some are just unbelievable. Like it's too unbelievable for television.

Wendy Mesley  20:09  
Yeah, well reading that there were ads and you said that some kids were even sold. It's just, I mean, it's-

Jennifer Podemski  20:16  
Yeah, we heard several stories of kids being sold as labor a lot in the States, kids who were traffic to the States. And yeah, the ads were part of that Adopt an Indian Métis program. So there were catalogs catalogs made.

Wendy Mesley  20:34  
So you could pick one. Yeah, you like say, I'll have one of these and one of those like their pigs.

Yeah. 

Wow. .

Maureen Holloway  20:40  
Let's get sidetracked a little bit more back to you. So you and your sisters are all performers are all actors. 

Jennifer Podemski  20:46  
Yeah. 

Maureen Holloway  20:47  
Correct? Wow. Interesting. I'd love to talk seriously about serious matters, but you have said that you wanted to be a clown. 

Jennifer Podemski  21:00  
Yeah. 

Maureen Holloway  21:00  
And that they obviously like making people laugh, or scary. I don't know. But tell us about your first experience when you went to New York and, you know, being who you are, and looking like you do, which is we pointed out or you pointed out, people were giving you a hard time for being looking Asian, whatever. Tell us what happened to you, when you decided that you would present yourself to various casting agents.

Wendy Mesley  21:26  
Well there was LA first I think, right and then you went to William Morris and-

Jennifer Podemski  21:30  
Yeah, that was that was kind of early in my 20s after I had done Dancing Outside, I was living, I guess, with with someone who was working a lot in the industry, and very successful. And she kind of inspired me to check out LA so I went to stay with a friend there. And, you know, went to William Morris for an interview and it was, it was very weird. Like, definitely, I think for every actor, it's and woman, for sure you know, it's always like stand up, turn around. Let me see your body, let me see what you look like your jacket, like that kind of stuff. But it's like, I don't really know what I would do with you. Like, I don't know what you like, I can't tell what you are like, a lot of people, especially casting directors at the time. Were like, you're just too, you're not really native enough to play native. So I would often lose my those roles to non native people who are looked more native. Yeah, who look more native and you're not really white so I really have no idea what to do with you. So it was a lot of that kind of stuff and that just kind of continued. Although I'm I'm really lucky. I did get to do a lot of great,  I did get to do a lot of great work. I did Viners with Sonya Smits and Tom Jackson, Conspiracy Of Silence, Dance Me Outside and then the Rez and then Degrassi. So I definitely would consider myself incredibly blessed that I was able to do those things. And despite that, I just was never able to make a living as an actor, because it was so few and far between. And then this whole idea of how I looked and the things I would have to compromise in the kind of work that was coming my way. It was constantly like, dehumanizing characters that I just couldn't, I just couldn't handle. And, you know, sometimes I would do them because because I was aware that if I didn't do it, it's possible that it would go to someone non Indigenous, and then at least if it's me, I could be on set and like, somehow educate people. And then I just felt like, this is not really what I really wanted to be a clown. I really wanted to be in the circus like, and that was actually before right before I moved to New York, I did a movie called Bogus and I got to train with the Cirque du Soleil. I got to train with Franco Dragone, the original, like artistic director of Cirque. I got to be a clown and it was one of the best experiences of my life and they invited me to do a shortlist audition for a clown in the Cirque du Soleil and then I had a skiing accident and I couldn't walk for like a year so it was like- 

Maureen Holloway  24:12  
Oh, wow. 

Jennifer Podemski  24:13  
And that's when sort of shortly after that, I moved to New York because my sister was in Rent. So I went and stayed on her couch and thought maybe I'll try New York and see how that goes and that was not, that didn't really work.

Maureen Holloway  24:30  
Jewish, don't forget like-

Jennifer Podemski  24:34  
I think they're  way more qualified, you know, to do that than I am.

Wendy Mesley  24:39  
So are you going to do like a series like a clown Indigenous where you teach everybody-

Jennifer Podemski  24:46  
But if someone approached me with the clown series, begged me to do it I  may not turn it down.

Wendy Mesley  24:53  
So what do you do now? Like what? So you've done your series and we hope that everyone watches it because it's so it's it's, it's beautiful. I mean, it's regardless of, of the meaning. It's it is beautiful. Yeah. so so now what now what I like I know you've got The Shine Network, which is the promoting Indigenous people to come out and tell stories digitally. But other than that, what do you do? Like, do you? I don't know, if this is the secret pleasures, question or what?

Jennifer Podemski  25:21  
I mostly work, you know, I have a slate of projects that I've been developing, you know, so I have projects that are kind of like in production, some are corporate clients, some are, you know, there's a lot going on that is, is not like in production, let's say.

Wendy Mesley  25:41  
So are you always working? Like what do you do for inspiration? Or is it always working? Like I, I've been watching The Bear and I do not cook, but it's just the food is like, so amazing. Is there something that you that you watch or is everything work related?

Maureen Holloway  25:56  
Do you have an outlet? 

Jennifer Podemski  25:58  
I typically don't watch content for inspiration. My inspiration comes from people. And I think that, for me, the most important thing in life is gathering with people and I'm big on hosting, like, I love to host people, and I love to bring people together. So any chance I get to do that that's what I do. 

Wendy Mesley  26:27  
Do people go to Barrie because you live in Barrie.

Maureen Holloway  26:32  
Barrie's beautiful man, I drive through it twice a week.

Jennifer Podemski  26:37  
I just like hosting. So that has become that is really my my inspiration and I write a lot. And I guess, you know, the truth is, my family is like we are an Indigenous family that faces a lot of those issues that you read in the newspaper. So that also inspires me as tragic and devastating as it can be, you know, having people in your family that have gone missing or people in your family that are dealing with, you know, those disproportionate realities that we we see in the news, those things inspire me to keep doing the work, whether it's through The Shine Network, where we're, you know, training and advocating and creating opportunities and professional development resources. So putting tons of energy into that, or creating content that uplifts Indigenous stories, or sheds light on Indigenous stories and experiences.

Wendy Mesley  27:40  
Yeah, because your your whole series that Little Bird was the consultant on it Na’kuset who runs the native Native Women's Shelter in Montreal, which is kind of a big deal. My daughter's in Montreal and contributed to that and everything. And she tells the story about how she sees so many people from the equivalent or actually from the 60s Scoop, because they've ended up like screwed up because that's what happens when you're removed from your family and you feel-

Jennifer Podemski  28:07  
Some ways that kind of drives you you know, it's it's the it's sometimes inspiration comes from things that make you sad and you want to see over and you want to see them stop happening.

Wendy Mesley  28:22  
Well, I hope they all become clowns. We're gonna wrap soon but but yeah, I would like to be a clown. I was going to run away in the circus too, but it's too hard. Like I'm like too many people like the bearded ladies thing is over, but thank goodness.

Maureen Holloway  28:38  
I just find it so ironic that you broke your leg when you were with me hoping to be with Cirque du Soleil. I mean, you have to do more than walk to be you couldn't even do that. But you know what it pointed you in probably a better direction.

Jennifer Podemski  28:52  
Yeah, they did. It's one of those sliding doors kinds of things. Yeah.

Maureen Holloway  28:57  
Yeah. Well, life is long. Who knows what's next.

Wendy Mesley  29:02  
And you live in Barrie. So do you still ski or is that over now too? Because-

Jennifer Podemski  29:06  
No, no, I'm yeah. 

Maureen Holloway  29:08  
There are no ski hills in Berrie. I mean, I know this Mount St. Louis. 

Wendy Mesley  29:18  
It's been lovely. Lovely. Lovely to talk to you.

Jennifer Podemski  29:21  
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Maureen Holloway  29:24  
And we will continue to sing the praises of this series because it's so good. And we look forward to whatever you do. Thank you.

Wendy Mesley  29:30  
Yeah, good luck with everything and let us know when the clown series comes because that would be fun, too. Yeah. 

Jennifer Podemski  29:38  
I will. Don't hold your breath.

Maureen Holloway  29:44  
You know, there was one thing I was going to bring up with with the Jen Podemski but I'm glad I didn't bring it up with you, was watching the show and I still have two more episodes to go and I like who said really enjoying it and but I felt this tremendous sense of guilt and shame. Because the white people, almost without exception, they weren't so much like villainous, they were just so stupid, and so self absorbed and so to a man or to a woman, and the reason why I didn't bring it up with Jen was like, you know what I don't need you to, to help me deal with my white lady guilt. You know, that's why I didn't want to talk to her about it. But did you not get that feeling? At one point? I turned to John going is there anybody there that realizes this is wrong?

Wendy Mesley  30:29  
Well, I think, and this is maybe white lady guilt and I think there's a lot of it. And I think it's good that we're that she's done the series and that we're all a little bit more aware of the 60s Scoop because of her work. But I was really struck by her saying and maybe it's because it's been sort of in the back of my head is that we're all just people like they're just humans, like Indigenous people are just they're just humans like everybody else like 

Maureen Holloway  30:55  
Yeah.

Wendy Mesley  30:56  
And so there have been hardships and they've been torn away from their family, but we're all just human and let everybody be treated as a frickin human being. But but yeah, I don't like I don't know, I guess I'm I wanted to ask her I have been thinking about and wasn't sure I should ask the same thing about Jean Chretien was Prime Minister and he had I wasn't a I don't think it was 60s Scoop but it was during the 70s and it was a family from the Northwest Territories. So as the equivalent of the 60 Scoop, he adopted an Inuit kid and that kid ended up screwed up and ended up in the penal system and whatever whatever whatever and had addiction issues. And Gretchen is quoted as saying, Well I didn't know I did anything bad, you know, I didn't know that there were all of these issues.

Maureen Holloway  31:41  
Well, I wonder what the circumstances were too of where have where that that boy came.

Wendy Mesley  31:46  
Yeah he came from an orphanage.

Maureen Holloway  31:47  
Was he taken, was he torn, from an orphanage or residential school or with the torn from his family the way that the little girl in a Little Bird was done? Well we don't know. And that ignorance is is not acceptable. It just is so well from one white lady to the other so you know we're gonna deal with the guilt.

Wendy Mesley  32:10  
Yeah, all right. Lovely to see you and to see Jenn and I'm so glad that it worked out so wonderful.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  32:17  
Women Of Ill Repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley. With the help from the team at the Sound Off Media Company and producer Jet Belgraver.