I’m on a Voyager rewatch with one of our GenZ kids.

It wasn’t long before we hit the episode with Chakotay coaching Janeway to find her spirit animal guide — I had to stop to explain why I was finding it uncomfortable.

They’ve seen the whole series multiple times since middle school but hadn’t known about the entire fake ‘Indigenous consultant’ fiasco with Voyager.

Conceptually, I appreciate the intention to have an authentic but non specific Indigenous character and hiring a consultant for that. That’s definitely intentional representation.

I often wonder if the consultant pushed the EPs away from casting Canadian actor Tom Jackson in the role of Chakotay simply because Jackson, who is authentically Indigenous (Cree mother, raised on-reserve in Saskatchewan) would have likely outed the consultant as a fraud very quickly.

Tom Jackson had played the role of Lakanta in the TNG 7th season Wesley-focused episode ‘Journey’s End.’ He was at the time, already in a senior main cast role in the groundbreaking CBC show North of 60 and had demonstrated his ability work in an ensemble with strong women characters.

By all accounts, Jackson was in very serious consideration for the role of Chakotay. Beltran was a surprising choice by contrast. While Latin American Indigenous descent is part of his heritage, there were sincere questions raised about why the showrunners had chosen not to cast an actor who was raised and connected to his Inidgenous identity.