Greg Sarris

Gregory Michael Sarris is the Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and the recent 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. Sarris is currently the Distinguished Chair Emeritus at Sonoma State University. He was appointed as a UC Regent by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2023.
A notable scholar and activist, Sarris was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. Sarris has authored six books, including 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, along with Robert Redford, of a two-part 1996 HBO miniseries adaptation, shot entirely on location. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Sundance Institute.

Childhood

Greg Sarris was born in Santa Rosa, California. He 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. Sarris received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Sonoma State University in June 2024.

Career

1989-2001 English professor, UCLA.
Writer in residence, PEN Program
Scholar in residence, Santa Rosa Junior College, 1996
Writer in residence, Dallas College, 1997
Adlai Stevenson Scholar in Residence. Stevenson College. UC Santa Cruz. 1997
Writer in Residence. Humboldt State University. 1997
2001-2005 Fletcher Jones Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University.
Writer in Residence. Stanford University. January 2003.
Writer in Residence. Syracuse University. October 2002.
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 seventeenth elected term as Chairman of the Tribe.
Board Chair of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian 2024
Member of the UC Board of Regents
Appointed to Sundance Institute's Board of Trustees in June 2025
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 that 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.

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 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, 1998; reissued 2021, University of Oklahoma Press.

;Short story collections

How A Mountain Was Made, Heyday, 2017.
Grand Avenue, Hyperion, 1994.
The Sound of Rattles and Clappers: A Collection of New California Indian Writing, University of Arizona Press, 1994.
Becoming Story, Heyday Books 2022
The Forgetters: Stories, Heyday Books, 2024

;Nonfiction

Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts, University of California Press, 1993.
Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream, University of California Press, 1994.
Approaches to Teaching the Works of Louise Erdrich, Modern Language Association of America, 2004.

;Film and Theater

', Home Box Office, 1996.
Best Picture. Grand Avenue. London Native American Film Festival. July 1998
Best Screenplay nomination, Grand Avenue, London Native American Film Festival.
Best Screenplay. Outstanding Achievement in Writing. Grand Avenue. First Americans in the Arts.
Best Picture. Grand Avenue. First Americans in the Arts. 1997.
Cable-Ace Nomination. Grand Avenue. Best Editing. 1997.
Producer's Award. Grand Avenue. First Americans in the Arts. 1997.
Emmy Nomination. Grand Avenue. Best Casting. 1997.
Best Story. Grand Avenue. American Indian Film Festival. 1996.
Best Picture. Grand Avenue. American Indian Film Festival. 1996.
Best Screenplay. Grand Avenue. Native American Film Exposition. 1996.
Best Picture. Grand Avenue. Native American Film Exposition. 1996.
Wrote script for , a play directed by Nancy Benjamin and Margo Hall, 2001.
Co-produced, advised, and was featured in a sixteen part series on American literature for public television called '.
produced the play Citizen, based on Sarris' story in 2023. It was praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as "as lush and as penetrating as a Sonoma County grapevine."
's production of Citizen was nominated for two San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle awards.
Awards and achievements
AFP National Philanthropy Day Outstanding Grantmaker Award, November 2024
EqualityCA Community Leadership Award 2024
Induction to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Los Angeles Equality Awards, Community Leadership Award, Los Angeles, October 2024.
Arts & Humanities Dean's Teaching Award, Sonoma State University
Sonoma County Democratic Party Trowbridge Lifetime Achievement Award, February 2024
University of Utah Award in the Environmental Humanities, September 2023
San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Visionary Award. April 2023
Sonoma State University Distinguished Chair Emeritus Award. August 2022.
North Bay Business Journal’s Pride Business Leadership Award. May 2021.
Heyday Lifetime Achievement Award. October 2020.
Santa Fe Film Festival Award, best screenplay, and , 1996, for Grand Avenue;
Hugo Award for Best Documentary. American Passages. 2003.
Best Reads Award, California Indian Booksellers, 1996;
California Indian Writer of the Year from the 15th Annual California Indian Conference. October 2000.
Certificate of Recognition for 2018 Sonoma County Conservation Action Dick Day Community Activist Award. June 2018.
California Independent Booksellers Award. Best Read. Fiction. Grand Avenue. 1997.
Western Business Alliance LGBT Economic Summit, Honoring 2017 Fire Relief Efforts, San Francisco, California. March 2018.
Bay Area Theater Critics Award, best play, 2002, for Mission Indians.
, 1988-1989
Distinguished Alumnus Award. Santa Rosa Junior College.
Greg Sarris Scholarship Fund. Santa Rosa Junior College
1989-1991
Independent Publisher Book Bronze Award for How a Mountain Was Made. April 2019.
North Bay Business Journal 2018 Community Philanthropy Awards. Santa Rosa, California. March 2018.
Associate Director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 1991-1992.
Appointed to the MLA Committee on the Literatures and Languages of America, 1992.
Award for Outstanding Service from California Indian Legal Services. September 25, 1998.
Humanitarian Award. Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce 1996.
“I Made a Difference Award”, Sunday Best, Gray Foundation. Santa Rosa, California. September 2013.
“Working Class Hero Award”, North Bay Labor Council, AFL-CIO. December 2012.
Sarris was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Sonoma State University in June 2024.
in October 2024.