![]() The singer’s parents didn’t know the full extent of the abuse, though she said they tended to downplay what did know about as just “boys being boys”. She alleges that two relatives sexually abused her, including her brother who also bullied and consistently humiliated her. Though Sainte-Marie said her father was loving, “there were pedophiles in his family”, she said. As a result, she said, her family “was more The Sopranos than Dances with Wolves”. The parents who raised her in New England were supportive, especially her mother who was part Mi’kmaq Indian. “You spend your entire life asking questions you can’t answer.” “As adopted children, we don’t even know when our birthday is,” the singer said. As an infant in Saskatchewan, Canada, she was adopted by an American family but the records containing information about her birth parents and their circumstances were sealed. Sainte-Marie’s sensitivity to Indigenous issues began early in her life, in part due to the confusion about her own identity growing up. They were deathly afraid of the whole Indigenous law situation because they were highly invested in energy companies and, when it comes to Indigenous rights, that’s the motivating factor.” President Johnson was a Democrat and President Nixon was a Republican but neither one of them wanted to hear about what I was singing about. Instead, a couple of sleazy employees go in the backroom and make nasty phone calls to whomever the administration says they should make nasty phone calls to. “A blacklisting would take an act of Congress. Sainte-Marie makes clear, however, that the US government didn’t blacklist her directly. “I found out about it on a radio show in the 80s.” “They don’t tell you, ‘hey, you’re under surveillance,’” the singer said with a laugh. Sainte-Marie only found out about the government’s interference in her career years after it occurred. At the same time, the film covers disturbing issues in her personal life, from sexual abuse by multiple family members to manipulation and confinement by a later romantic partner, to memos and calls made by people associated with various US administrations meant to discourage radio stations from playing her music in the 60s and 70s. The documentary delineates most, but not all, of the “firsts” in her career, making clear how far ahead of the pack she was in the fields of music, film, television, technology and politics. Now, thanks to a comprehensive new documentary titled Carry It On, viewers can see just how effective Sainte-Marie has been in her eight decades of life. And to me, it’s all about being effective.” But you really have to see through that in order to become effective. “A lot of people come at politics with their fists raised. “I don’t have a scolding attitude about these things for a reason,” Sainte-Marie said in a phone interview from her home in Hawaii. ![]() Even so, when Sainte-Marie talks about vexing subjects like this today she exudes an abiding sense of calm, punctuating even her most withering observations with a giggle that brings the listener in, as if to say, “can you believe we had to put up with all this crap?”
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