Greg Sarris is a college professor, author, screenwriter, and current Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. He was chosen in 2005 to fill the Endowed Chair in Native American Studies at Sonoma State University. The Chair was endowed by his tribe. He was formerly the Fletcher Jones Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles; and a full professor at UCLA for ten years.
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Life
Sarris was born in 1952 in Santa Rosa, California. He writes that his presumed mother, Mary Bernadette "Bunny" Hartman was an unmarried, 16-year-old white Jewish girl from Laguna Beach, in southern California. She died a few days after his birth, he says from a mismatched blood transfusion. He attended local schools through Santa Rosa Junior College, and received a B.A. in 1978 from UCLA, where he also played football. He worked in Hollywood as a model and actor before going to graduate school. He earned a Ph.D. in modern thought and literature at Stanford University in 1988, and returned to UCLA to teach in 1989 [1].
The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria
Sarris began organizing what would become the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria in 1992. His biography at the FIGR website says:
- "In 1992, when Greg was beginning his teaching career at UCLA as an assistant professor, he got word of a tribe attempting to establish a casino at Tomales Bay. This tribe was not Coast Miwok or Southern Pomo and was well out of its territory. Greg immediately notified and consulted with Tribal elders, and soon after called the first meeting to reorganize the Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria."
The tribe he organized in 1992 was called the Federated Coast Miwok. Renamed the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, an act of Congress gave it recognition in 2000. The biography continues:
- "He then led the push for restoration of the tribe as a federally recognized American Indian nation, co-authoring a bill (H.R. 5528) with California Indian Legal Services, which President Clinton signed on December 27, 2000 officially granting the tribe status as a federally recognized tribe." [2]
California 6th District Representative Lynn Woolsey introduced the Graton Rancheria Restoration Act August 6, 1998 (105th Congress, 2d Session, H.R. 4434 [3], later H.R. 946 [4], ultimately H.R. 5528). California Senator Barbara Boxer introduced S. 2633, a bill identical to H.R. 946, in the Senate May 25, 2000 [5]. The bill was ultimately passed and signed by President Clinton as Title XIV of Boxer's Omnibus Indian Advancement Act (Public Law No. 106-568). Representative Woolsey's original bill would not have permitted the FIGR to have an Indian casino. Senator Boxer removed that prohibition when she included Woolsey's bill in the Omnibus Act.
Bibliography
Novels
- Watermelon Nights (1998)
Short story collections
- Grand Avenue (1994)
- The Sound of Rattles and Clappers: a Collection of New California Indian Writing (1994) (as editor and contributor)
Nonfiction
- Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (1993)
- Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream (1994)
- Approaches to Teaching the Works of Louise Erdrich (2004)
Books about his work
- Elvira Pulitano, Toward a Native American Critical Theory (2005). Sarris is one of six authors whose work she surveys
Other work
- Executive producer (with Robert Redford), Grand Avenue (HBO).
See also
- Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria
- List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
- Native American Studies
- Sonoma State University
External links
[History of the Graton Rancheria]
References
- Tribe Donates $1.50 MIllion to SSU. The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, California, December 9, 2003
- SSU Gift. The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, California, December 10, 2003.
