Graton chairman Sarris’s new book embraces familiar territory
Before he became the high-powered chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, leading the effort to regain federal recognition for his tribe and build an $850 million casino to provide for its members, Greg Sarris led a far different life. He was an academic, fiction writer, screenwriter and avowed “egghead” whose world was circumscribed by the written word.
He laments that people have forgotten that essential side of him.
“I get so tired of people coming up to me and asking me about the casino,” he said recently from an upper floor conference room in the tribe’s Rohnert Park offices. “I’d like for people to come up and ask me about my books.”
In fact, they are starting to do that since the recent publication of his new book, “How a Mountain was Made,” (Heyday, 2017) a fanciful series of tales of anthropomorphic animals, birds, insects and elements, who inhabit Sonoma Mountain and whose exploits, lessons and fates together tell the story of the mountain. And, in the tradition of ancient allegories, they also tell a great deal about human nature.
Much has changed since “Grand Avenue,” Sarris’ searing collection of short stories weaving the history of five generations of Pomo Indians with the lives of other ethnic people struggling through life together on one potholed street in Santa Rosa. It was published to high literary praise in 1994 and later adapted into an HBO miniseries co-produced by Robert Redford. Sarris went on to write more stories and books, including the novel “Watermelon Nights” and a biography of the renowned Pomo basketweaver Mabel McKay. But the all-consuming and often controversial tribal work took the university English professor on a sharp detour from publishing into unfamiliar territory.
“I had never been in a casino in my life,” he said of his prior life. “I have a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford. What did I know? I knew nothing. But I wanted to help my dad’s people get their rights back after being illegally terminated.”
Casino money changes lives
His work with the tribe continues. He talks exuberantly about the programs supported by the millions of dollars flooding in from the casino and new luxury resort hotel that he says are having a big impact.
“All of our kids can go to college and we pay the tuition,” he said. “If they are going full-time - this is going to be voted on now - we will pay for their housing. In 10 years we’ve turned around an 80 percent dropout rate by 9th grade to an 80 percent graduation rate from high school. We have a tribal aid to needy families here that doesn’t just serve folks in our tribe but serves all American Indians in Marin and Sonoma counties. We have over 600 American Indian youth that are using everything from our aid to families programs through our after school programs to our GED programs to our college prep programs. Those things are life changing.”
In the years leading up to the casino opening Sarris showed a tougher side and was a lightning rod for critics fearful that the casino would lead to crushing traffic, crime and environmental problems.
He attributes at least some of the vitriol to the fact that he stepped out of his socially approved place.
Beset by dual stereotypes
“I’ve sort of been the victim of two American Indian stereotypes,” said the writer.“We’re loved when we’re the fallen nature god and we do art and weave baskets and write books and talk about how horrible our experiences are or aren’t. Then we’re the fallen nature god as long as we’re defeated. Once it’s a question of power and territory, we’re instantly wagon-burners again.”
Sarris was adopted as an infant and raised by white parents George and Mary Sarris, in Santa Rosa. It was only as a young man that he learned the identity of his biological parents - his mother a white, wealthy teenager who died of a bad blood transfusion after giving birth to him; and his father, who was half-Filipino, half American Indian, who died an alcoholic just six months before Sarris discovered he was his father. His adoptive mother and three siblings are deceased. But he has reconnected with and become fully embraced by his birth father’s extended family, including cousins, some of whom work for the tribe. Both of his mothers are buried in Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Santa Rosa, where he visits them both.
His earllier storms seem to have subsided and now Sarris, who continues to teach at Sonoma State University, is almost buoyantly happy to be back to his literary roots.
“As Will [Shakespeare] says - here’s the literature professor quoting, ‘All’s well that ends well.’”
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