They aren't going for cheap laughs at native cultures
I thought the "metal bird" line was a cheap laugh and the stuff about the necklaces was a pretty weak ass caricature. I grew up surrounded by Cree and Sioux people. The only times they say/ do stuff like that is when they are making fun of how wwhite people treat them.
If it was always intended to be Jane Krakowski, then she should have passed on the native american idea.
i'm still interested why you think these stories are better than a monoracial first nations person
I guess I find it more interesting, at least in the context of this show, is because full-blood aboriginal people are usually unmistakably aboriginal. When they move to the city they are usually treated like aboriginal people in the city. In Canada this varies greatly from city to city. In Winnipeg its really bad. In Toronto it is somewhat less bad.
A great many biracial aboriginal people can pass for some darker skinned European race and many of them do so to escape the terrible treatment that unmistakably aboriginal people face. Following the horrors of the Canadian residential school system there are a lot of aboriginal people who are ashamed to be aboriginal as well. Shining some light on these issues, and others, in a big budget, high-profile show would be legitimately interesting. Being dumb-Jenna who happens to be Lakota is less interesting.
I just kinda think that if they wanted to approach an issue this deep and sensitive, they should have done it with depth and sensitivity.
Also:
The colloquial usage in Western Canada, whether technically correct or not, is that Bob is first nations. Not Bob is A first nations. He could be A first nations person though.
Bob is definitely not a first nation but Waywayseecappo is most definitely a first nation.
I'm not entirely sure whether that is how we should say it, but that's generally what we do say. At least those of us who choose to be civil. (anti-native racism in Canada is brutal)
You may notice that I constantly shift between saying aboriginal, native and first nations, but I never say Indian. That's another Canadian-ism.