WEB EXCLUSIVE: Wab Kinew on his parents' interracial marriage

When Wab Kinew's parents started dating in the late 1960s, it was "a big deal" for a First Nations man and a non-native woman to be together. Kinew says his parents always looked back at that time with humour, especially laughing at their own blunders as an interracial couple. In this web extra, Kinew tells a story that's become part of the family lore:

"So my dad comes over, the First Nations gentleman from the north and he's at this house in the Beaches area [in Toronto], sitting around, waiting for her to come downstairs. Then she walks down the stairs and she's dressed head-to-toe in buckskin, tanned hide with fringes, just looking like the picture of the 'Indian Maiden.' My dad stifles his laughter for as long as he can, but eventually they bump into one of her other relatives and this older woman, she looks at my mom and says, 'Why aren't we looking Indian tonight!' At which point they all burst out laughing. There was tension, but then there was this native guy and non-native woman working it out together."