From a Keynote address in 2005

My name is Jennifer Podemski and I am 31 years old. I am an actor, writer, producer and entrepreneur. I am Saulteaux (my mother is from Muscowpetung First Nation) and Israeli, my father is from Israel.

I grew up in Toronto, in a middle class home torn apart by alcoholism. Growing up I had a very weak sense of self, little self-esteem and I felt shame about who I was. To say the least, I had serious identity issues. When I was a child, I remember looking in the mirror and hating what I saw, my slanty eyes, my wide face, my hair, my skin colour. Everything. When I was around my fathers people I felt out of place, when I was around my mothers people I felt out of place, when I was around, I simply felt out of place.

I can’t tell you where those feelings came from, or why I felt them, but I do know now, that I am not the only person who felt those things, who feels those things.

A part of it may have been that I was different and didn’t really fit in, and a part of it may have been passed down to me through genetic memory. My mother, her parents and grandparents, were systematically broken down by federal policy, racism, residential school and disenfranchisement. My father’s father persecuted for being a Jew, lost his family and spent five of his teenage years in concentration camps and the rest of his life disconnected from his religion. I believe that all of these memories are inside me. Some refer to this as multi generational grief or trauma.

Having said all of this, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. At the age of ten, I found the stage. Or should I say, the stage found me. Somehow, and I can’t remember the events leading up to it but I found a great love of performing. At first, it was the permission to be someone else for just a little while, but then it turned into something greater, something profound. I discovered that I could use all of the ugly feelings inside me and turn them into something good. Like Rumplestilskin did with straw, I did with my anger, fear and self hatred, turned it into gold.

I joined dance classes, choir, school plays and community theatre, I was relieved to have found an outlet where I could express my self freely and feel a part of something, like I belonged.

I recently read somewhere that the antidote to Repression is Expression. And that’s when it hit me. Performing saved my life.

That is a huge part, of why I stand before you today. I followed something in my heart, my gut. A feeling that, once I really paid attention to it, guided me to where I am. That is not to say that the circumstances of my life became better; it was when they were the most challenging and difficult that my drive became greater, my dreams became bigger. I did slip and fall along the way, but somehow, I was able to get up and begin again.

In grade 9 I was accepted to a performing arts high school in Toronto as a dance major. That is where I learned that the arts is much more that feeling a part of something and expressing your self, it a discipline. It’s hours upon hours of rehearsal and technique every day, it’s theory and history, it working harder than I had ever worked before. It was almost not fun anymore. By grade 11 I was suspended from school for missing the most classes in out of anyone in the 2,000 student school. Somewhere I stopped caring. I allowed my insecurity to get the best of me, telling me I wasn’t good enough, that I couldn’t compete with the best, that it would never happen for me. I spent so much time looking at everyone else, how easy they had it and how crappy my life was.

Until - one day a casting director came to my school and took pictures of students who were interested in becoming background performers in television and film. I go my picture taken. I don’t know what possessed me, but I did. Only a few short weeks later, I found myself working 18 hour days on the weekends on movies and television series as an extra. I had a renewed sense of life, of purpose. I began studying hard, taking night school and graduating one year early with an A, and I was on my way to becoming a professional actor. I couldn’t believe it.

Now, my life went on, with many ups and downs, I struggled and worked as a small time actor for many years and paid my dues, as they say. I worked so many side jobs to support myself, had a brief two year encounter with university, film school, LA and New York city.

One of the most profound moments in my life, Oprah would call this an AH HA! Moment, came when I was 25 and living in New York City, broke, sleeping on my sisters couch, out of work, and out of sorts. I remember feeling so alone, in such a big city, feeling like my life was a joke. I grabbed a newspaper called Backstage, New York’s actor magazine, I sat down with a coffee and started looking for auditions. I could not have felt lower, when suddenly I turned the page and there was a huge picture of me! As it turned out, a New York critic had seen a small play I had done in Toronto, wrote a smashing review about the play and my performance.

At that moment I realized something very important about life. It is full of signs. Some are blatant in your face kind of signs and some are silent and mysterious, some are a gut feeling or simply instinct. But I believe all of them are given to us as a gift by a divine force.

When I saw that article, something inside me changed. I took a breath and realized that I had to trust myself, go with my gut and take responsibility for everything in my life. That was when I decided to take a break from acting, get a regular minimum wage job in New York and spend some time percolating.

I began thinking about my ancestors. All of them, dating way back in time. The more I thought about it, I realized that I am here, on this earth, because of them, because they survived and persevered and left a legacy for me to continue. I came to understand the great responsibility all of have on this earth. We are all living legacies.
We are here to leave something behind, to continue our culture and languages and keep our communities alive and strong.

Once I started thinking I couldn’t stop. Then it hit me, it was if in one moment everything made sense suddenly.

When I was growing up I watched a lot of television. I was a product of pop culture. But I never ever saw anyone who represented me, or what I looked like on TV, in magazines or on much music. I came to the realization that if a people, a community, are not reflected in media and popular culture they are invisible to the world and when they are invisible to the world, they become extinct. Growing up, I never saw images I could relate to in the media. It made me feel invisible. Alone.

When I came back to Toronto, I had a mission. Somehow I wanted to use the skills and training I had to provide a platform for aboriginal youth to tell their stories of trial and triumph and share it with other kids who have no representation otherwise. I wanted to participate in making sure that a young child, like I was, doesn’t have to feel invisible ever again.

Shortly after that epiphany, I met my producing partner, Laura Milliken and together we created the first aboriginal youth role model television series, we called it The Seventh Generation to honor the legacy that our grandmothers and grandfathers left behind.

In closing I would like to say that:
I am here today because I wanted to share my story with all of you. Mine is only one, I encourage all of you to think about your own stories, share them with your friends and families, and if you are so inclined, write them down and share them with the world. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone has a divine purpose in this thing we call life. Everyone deserves to be loved and to love themselves and everyone here is a living legacy.

Life is always changing nothing stays the same. The best we can do is live our best life. When the good times are good, let them be good, when they’re bad, let them be bad. But always know that there is no bad without good, there is no light with out dark and life is all about balance.

I encourage you all to follow the voice deep in your heart and watch for the signs. I assure you that in doing so, you will unleash your limited potential in life.

I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

If you say you can or you can’t you probably will.

Peace out.