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June 19, 2024
Sarris’ latest book, “The Forgetters,” published by Heyday Books, is immediately engaging, a revealing glimpse into the lives, places and heritage of our region’s Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok people, and provocative because, with rich detail and lyrical craft, Sarris calls on us to remember the essential way all humans actually come to understand and value our lives.
May 29, 2024
Sarris became active in tribal politics in the 1990s and, in 2000, was instrumental in obtaining federal recognition for The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. He subsequently led the effort to build the Graton Resort and Casino in Sonoma County, which opened in 2013.
May 23, 2024
“We’re complicated people who suffered a traumatic history, but we have humor and dignity and against all odds,” Greg Sarris M.A. ’81, Ph.D ’89 said to an audience of over 100 people at an event celebrating his new book “The Forgetters” Tuesday night at Cemex. “The Forgetters” follows the conversations between two sister crows, Question Woman and Answer Woman, in a dialogue-driven narrative. Question Woman cannot remember a story until she asks for it to be told, and Answer Woman cannot tell stories unless she is asked. The sisters tell the stories of The Forgetters, people who have forgotten their past.
May 22, 2024
Greg Sarris lives in Sonoma County. His collection of stories, The Forgetters, came out on April 16th, 2024.
April 6, 2024
Greg Sarris’s gritty, dramatic, and innovative novel-in-stories, Grand Avenue, follows the exploits of members of an urban Native American community in Santa Rosa, Northern California, (as does the HBO miniseries based on the book, which he wrote and executive produced with Robert Redford). Watermelon Nights, his next book of fiction, is the multigenerational tale of the survivors of a small California tribe– almost extinct by the beginning of the twentieth century–who struggle to reclaim federal recognition in the 1990s.
March 21, 2024
Sonoma State University will bestow honorary degrees on two longtime North Bay community leaders during the university’s 2024 Commencement ceremonies on May 18. Dr. Greg Sarris, chairman of The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR) will receive Doctor of Humane Letters (LHD) degrees at Commencement. Sarris’ degree will be conferred at the School of Arts and Humanities ceremony.
March 2, 2024
The Sonoma County Democratic Party’s annual Crab Feed included a ceremony awarding the Trowbridge Lifetime Achievement Award to Chairman Greg Sarris of Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. Celebrating Chairman Sarris’ longtime service to the Democratic Party, the plaque was presented by Mary Watts, 1st Chair of the Sonoma County Democratic Party. In presenting the award, Mary Watts commented, “Chairman Sarris has done so much for the community and truly represents the values of the Democratic Party. As a champion for tribal members and the greater community, we know Chairman Sarris will continue to be a fighter for environmental and social justice for years to come.”
February 9, 2024
Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated film, begins with Osage men somberly performing a traditional pipe ceremony. It cuts to a slow-motion scene of tribal members exuberantly dancing in a field, crude oil gushing around them. Get it? Indians are sacred, ancient in their care and devotion to the natural world. Suddenly, though, they will be challenged by settler wealth and greed.
January 17, 2024
On Tuesday, January 16, Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR) and Sonoma State University (SSU), celebrated the opening of the FIGR Learning Center at SSU’s Fairfield Osborn Preserve, marking what Claudia Luke, Director of SSU’s Center for Environmental Inquiry called the beginning of a profound, place-based partnership.
November 30, 2023
Master chroniclers of the West, Greg Sarris and Obi Kaufmann have penned some of our favorite texts of and about California. In Place and Purpose, a monthly video podcast series, these two pioneering thinkers have launched a project that tackles the deepest questions about the lands we inhabit, our challenges as a society, and the possibilities of our collective future.
September 10, 2023
As chair of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, Greg Sarris, distinguished chair emeritus of Native American Studies at Sonoma State University, has an extensive body of humanities work that spans media and genres: novels, memoir, film, theater, and more. In recognition of the work he has done to protect Indigenous knowledges, lands, and peoples, Sarris will receive the 2023 Utah Award in the Environmental Humanities from the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities Graduate Program.
June 30, 2023
Greg Sarris, chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, has been appointed to the University of California Board of Regents, it was announced Thursday The appointment, by Gov. Gavin Newsom, requires confirmation by the state Senate.
June 17, 2023
The Federated Indians of Granton Rancheria has gifted the Sundance Indigenous Program $4 million to empower Indigenous filmmakers from California tribes. The gift will help fund a fellowship, workshops and grants for Indigenous creators in the state.
June 16, 2023
Plans at the 254-acre casino site call for a gaming floor almost twice the current size, with 2,000 more slot machines and an additional 200-plus hotel rooms, making it one of California’s three largest gaming facilities, led by the Yaamava’ Resort & Casino on the outskirts of San Bernardino. The $1 billion expansion is shaping up as the largest commercial construction project in Sonoma County in years.
August 11, 2021
On Monday, August 9, 2021, a General Agreement for a Government-to-Government Partnership was signed between the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (Tribe) and the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service (NPS), Interior Regions 8, 9, 10, and 12, which specifically includes the Point Reyes National Seashore and those sections of Marin County which are administrated by the Superintendent of Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS).
April 6, 2021
To help their efforts, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (FIGR) presented the collaborative with a $250,000 grant to continue to provide needed legal and social services for the underserved.
April 6, 2021
“The cost of living in the Bay Area is so high and so many people pay a really large portion of their income towards rent,” said Aamir Deen, the president of Unite Here Local 49, which represents casino workers like Duroux. “This makes that portion more manageable,” he said of the pay raises.
January 27, 2021
As Salvador, the aforementioned abandoned son, Edie Flores smoothly moves the bulk of the narrative forward, his voice coloring each passage with a golden resonance.
September 24, 2020
“Tribal law is a cornerstone of Native Americans’ quest for equality and inclusion within the U.S. justice system,” said Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Tribal Chairman Greg Sarris, who received his undergraduate degree from UCLA and returned to teach English for more than a decade.
March 24, 2018
“I had never written a children’s story, so I turned to the classics like the Brothers Grimm, where a beautiful maiden is rescued by a handsome and powerful male hero. The contrast between them and the Miwok, female-centric tales was obvious, but the most noticeable thing is the level of violence and gruesome deaths in the classic fairy tales.”
July 18, 2017
A writer and academic who has taught at UCLA, Loyola Marymount University and Sonoma State University, Sarris helped lead the Graton Rancheria tribe’s restoration as a federally recognized American Indian nation
April 5, 2014
“I believe that leading and teaching use many of the same skills, but it is important for me to keep the two hats separate,” said Sarris.
