Gregory Michael Sarris (born February 12, 1952) is the Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (since 1992) and the current Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Until 2022, Sarris was the Graton Rancheria Endowed Chair in Creative Writing and Native American Studies at Sonoma State University, where he taught classes in Native American Literature, American Literature, and Creative Writing. He is also President of the Graton Economic Development Authority.
A notable scholar and activist, Sarris was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. Sarris has authored six books, the best known of which is Grand Avenue, a collection of autobiographical short stories about contemporary Native American life. Named after a real place in Santa Rosa's South Park district, Sarris was a co-executive producer of a two-part 1996 HBO miniseries adaptation, shot entirely on location.
Childhood
Greg Sarris was adopted shortly after his birth by a middle-class white couple, George and Mary Sarris, who believed they could not have children. Shortly after, they conceived the first of three biological children, which complicated life at home with his alcoholic father. Sarris was frequently the target of his father's abuse. In an effort to keep him out of harm's way, he was sent to live with various white and American Indian foster families. At the age of 12, Sarris met Pomo basket weaver Mabel McKay, who taught him about American Indian customs and tradition. According to Sarris, McKay's guidance provided him with a sense of purpose.
Education
After graduating from Santa Rosa High School in 1970, Sarris attended Santa Rosa Junior College. In 1977 he graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English from UCLA. He went on to complete his graduate studies at Stanford University, earning a master's degree in creative writing in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature in 1989.
Career
1989-2001 English professor, UCLA. 2001-2005 Fletcher Jones Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University. Endowed Chair in Native American Studies, Sonoma State University, 2005. Consultant for Turner Broadcasting System on California Indians. Tribal Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. 1992–Present. He is in his fifteenth elected term as Chairman of the Tribe.
Ancestry
Greg Sarris’ mother, seventeen year old Mary Bernadette “Bunny” Hartman, of German, Jewish and Irish descent, came from a wealthy family. She was sent to Santa Rosa to deliver her child, which was not uncommon for unwed mothers at the time. She was inadvertently given the wrong blood type in a transfusion after giving birth, and died shortly thereafter. Sarris’ father was not named on the birth certificate. It wasn't until the early 1980s as a graduate student at Stanford that Sarris learned Emilio Arthur Hilario, of Filipino, Miwok and Pomo descent, was his biological father. According to Sarris, he learned the identity of his great great grandparents from his grandfather, Emiliano Hilario. Hilario's grandmother, Reinette Smith Sarragossa, was the daughter of Emily Stewart, a woman of mixed blood ancestry, and Tom Smith, a well-known healer of Pomo and Coastal Miwok blood.
Marilee Montgomery and Stop the Casino 101 Coalition dispute Sarris's claim to have Pomo and Miwok blood. Sarris was at the forefront of the controversial Graton Resort and Casino project which was strongly opposed by Stop the Casino 101 Coalition.
Activism
In the early 1990s, Sarris worked to have the Coast Miwok and Pomo Native Americans gain recognition as a tribe. He co-authored the Graton Rancheria Restoration Act, 25 U.S.C. §1300n (Act) with California Indian Legal Services. President Clinton signed the Act into law on December 27, 2000, officially granting the tribe status as a federally recognized tribe. The Act mandated that the Secretary of the Interior take land in the tribe's aboriginal territory of Marin or Sonoma Counties into trust as the Tribe's reservation.
Published works
Novels
Watermelon Nights: A Novel, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1998; reissued 2021, University of Oklahoma Press.
Short story collections
How A Mountain Was Made, Heyday (Berkeley, CA), 2017. Grand Avenue, Hyperion (New York, NY), 1994. (Editor and contributor) The Sound of Rattles and Clappers: A Collection of New California Indian Writing, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, AZ), 1994.