Now, the 51-year-old Sarris is insisting that his tribe be noticed.

Sarris, who grew up enchanted by tales of Indians but oblivious to his own tribal heritage, leads a band of 582 Coast Miwoks and southern Sonoma Pomos fighting for a project that Sarris calls vital for the tribes' self- sufficiency, but what critics call an environmental and social disaster in the making: a casino on the shores of San Pablo Bay.

"Mr. Sarris is certainly doing what he can for the betterment of his people, " said Sonoma County Supervisor Paul Kelley. "But it shouldn't come at the expense of local citizens."

For a decade, Sarris has led the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. He persuaded Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., to sponsor legislation restoring the tribe's federal status on the promise it wouldn't run a gambling operation. Then, after deciding that such pursuits as making cheese wouldn't enrich his followers, he opted for the lure of the slot machine.

To some in the North Bay, he's an opportunist. To others, he's a tireless leader trying to improve his tribe's economic welfare.

Alternately charming and churlish, the once-media-happy Sarris now shuns scrutiny and deflects questions he regards as too intrusive.

"It is important when we talk about things that they are big and that we're not just making small talk. This is about future generations," Sarris said in a recent telephone interview. "We want to be able to control our message."

At a series of public meetings this summer, however, Sarris has been called on to explain himself to unfailingly hostile crowds. He hammers on the same point -- the proposed casino near Highway 37 and Lakeville Highway, with its 1, 900 slot machines and 200-room hotel, will lift out of poverty tribal members who in some cases don't have enough money to fix a broken water heater.

Sarris has promised that his casino -- close to the urban mother lode of San Francisco and Oakland -- will be tasteful and not some gaudy showcase. "We do not want a wart on the landscape," he said in April, when the tribe's plans were announced. "We want a world-class resort."

Sarris isn't obliged to bother with such reassurances. Federally recognized tribes are empowered to operate casinos on their sovereign lands, and ultimately, the state and local jurisdictions have scant power over them.

But delays are costly -- if lawmakers or lawyers make trouble, opening day could become more distant. The community's resistance already has prompted the tribe and its corporate partner -- Station Casinos Inc. of Las Vegas, which declined to comment for this article at the tribe's request -- to look at alternative sites for a casino that could snare an estimated $250 million to $300 million a year.

And Sarris, who says he isn't paid for his efforts, has become the project's key salesman.

Sarris said in a 2000 interview that his mother was 16 when he was born. She gave him up for adoption and died shortly afterward of a bad blood infusion. His father was her high school boyfriend, a half-Filipino and half- Indian football star, who later helped break the race barrier playing football at the University of Southern California.

Sarris grew up in middle-class Santa Rosa with a white family and says he felt like a misfit. As a teenager, he was more comfortable in the city's poorer neighborhoods and discovered several Coast Miwoks who lived there, befriended him and told stories of their ancestors.

Years later, as he earned his doctorate in modern thought and literature at Stanford University in 1989, he discovered his own Coast Miwok heritage through his research into Mabel McKay, a spiritual leader for the tribe and basket weaver.

Sarris has drawn from the stories of North Coast Indians that he heard over the years to write a half-dozen books. These are stories of the outcast, the disinherited, the excluded -- steeped in Sarris' experiences with poor Indians,

Mexicans, Portuguese and others in Santa Rosa's South Park neighborhood.

The books have helped make him a successful man. He hobnobbed with Robert Redford at the Sundance Screenwriting Laboratory in 1993, and with the actor's help turned his collection of short stories, "Grand Avenue," into a three-hour HBO miniseries. He taught literature and creative writing at UCLA, and then in August 2001, Sarris began teaching those subjects at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Raffi Kevorkian, who studied under him, said Sarris was at once challenging and inclusive, going so far as to hold potlucks at his Los Angeles home, where he lives alone.

"He was very encouraging that we develop our own voices," Kevorkian said. "The whole time we were in class, it had a very democratic feel to it. He would listen to what everyone had to say, then he would address the finer points. He's smart as a whip."

All the while, Sarris was working with his scattered band of Indians and turning them into a federally recognized tribe.

Tribal members gathered for summer picnics at Ya Ka ama Indian Educational Center in Forestville (Sonoma County) and shared family histories, said Wallace Murray, who has spent about 10 years filming the tribe and capturing oral histories.

At these gatherings, Murray said, the extended family relaxed together and developed a strategy toward a common goal.

"They were committed to tribal reinstatement when it was just a sliver of hope, and now their challenge is self-determination," Murray said. "I think they will approach that goal with the same self-determination and perseverance. "

Sarris has encyclopedic knowledge of his Indian heritage, which he recounts with ease.

Ancestors -- from Tomales, Bodega Bay and Sebastopol -- predated the arrival of Sir Francis Drake. The Coast Miwok population, which numbered 2,500 to 3,000 in 1775, was decimated by disease, malnutrition and killings. Today's Miwoks trace their ancestry to just 13 individuals who were tallied in a state census in the mid-1800s.

In the 1920s, a steep, 15-acre rancheria in Graton, near Sebastopol, was set aside for the "digger Indians" to live in camps -- but Sarris said in a 2000 interview that there was never enough room for more than six families.

Many of the tribal members were plunged into poverty when the federal government disbanded the rancheria in 1958. The remaining families, who kept in touch and worked toward formal recognition as a tribe, scattered through Sonoma and Marin counties and elsewhere in California.

Sarris said half the tribe's members earn less than $30,000 each and nearly a third earn less than $20,000 each. Forty-four percent have health problems, such as diabetes or heart troubles, yet half of them are without health insurance.

Three years ago, the tribe proved its genealogy to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. With Boxer's bill helping to restore its federal status, the tribe hoped for access to housing, education, health care and other benefits through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

But Sarris said at a recent public forum that the federal aid fell short. "We thought we would be taken care of. . . . We were naive."

He said the tribe explored various moneymaking ventures -- organic farming, growing wine grapes, running a cheese factory. When those didn't pan out, tribal members decided to use the rights granted to Indians by California voters to go into gaming.

The tribe focused on the site near Highway 37 -- Coast Miwok and southern Sonoma Pomo ancestral land that the tribe had protected against claims by other tribes.

At three public forums this summer, the tribal council presented its plans for a casino staffed with 2,000 union workers and its goals to restore nearby wetlands, preserve open space and share $160 million in revenue with local communities for 20 years. Tribal council member Joanne Campbell outlined how part of the gaming revenue would be used to establish two scholarships at local community colleges.

Gloria Armstrong, who has lived on the tribe's Graton land for 50 years, said the tribe is part of the North Coast community and wants to work cooperatively with Marin and Sonoma counties, as well as any cities near an eventual casino.

"My feeling is that a casino can be good if you have people that make it that way and work together," she said.

Detractors fret over the estimated 12,000 cars arriving daily to the casino,

the environmental impact on wetlands and increased crime and other ills associated with gambling.

"What has hurt them more than anything else is their broken promises to Congress and the people about the tribe going into gaming," said Doug Webster of the group No Las Vegas in the North Bay, formed to oppose the casino. "It has made the credibility of anything else they say questionable."

At a community meeting in Sonoma in June, where she was interrupted by catcalls and boos, tribal council member Lorell Ross promised that the tribe would make its decisions "with an open process and an open dialogue."

Opponents were far from reassured.

"In general, casinos have found a marriage made in the heaven," Webster said. "They've got the money and the tribe has the power, and together they can do things that nobody else has been able to accomplish."

The proposed casino site on the edge of San Pablo Bay was selected by the Federated Indians' seven-member tribal council. All the members live in Sonoma and Marin counties, except for Sarris.

At a community meeting in Santa Rosa, Sarris joked that the council could care for folks from the cradle to the grave: They include a nurse, a school administrator, a retired Santa Rosa police officer, a Hewlett-Packard manager, an elder-care worker and a former mortician.

"We're a diverse people, and our council reflects that -- each brings a different perspective," said tribal member Lezlie Grigone of Occidental, who was briefly a council member earlier this year. "We have Greg, who brings his academic tower to the board, (and) we have people who live in the trenches and live from paycheck to paycheck."

That humble band, however, has acquired a bevy of high-priced and powerful consultants to shepherd their plans, document their community outreach and gain admission into the state's gaming compact.

One of them is lobbyist Darius Anderson, who owns property in Kenwood and is a fund-raiser for Gov. Gray Davis. Others include Chris Lehane, a former campaign spokesman in Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid, and Doug Boxer, the lawyer son of the senator.

Sarris approached Anderson when the tribe sought federal recognition, and the team evolved from there.

The tribe's casino plans face increasing resistance. Along with opposition from the Sonoma, Marin, Napa and Solano supervisors, there is federal legislation by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and several U.S. representatives that intends to halt the process.

"I'm worried that casino developers from Nevada are partnering with tribes in an effort to circumvent all the local laws and regulations, build casinos and get the revenues," said Sonoma County Supervisor Mike Kerns, who represents the southern portion of the county. "I don't think anyone envisioned Sonoma County as being the gaming capital of California."

Sarris is optimistic that the casino will be built, eventually. With the agreements with local jurisdictions, promises of revenue sharing and other community goodies, it will be more palatable to detractors. The tribe is taking a look at other sites, including one northwest of Rohnert Park, far from San Pablo Bay.

"We will take the high road," Sarris said. "Despite what has been done to us, we'll show you the people we really are."

E-mail Pamela J. Podger at ppodger@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle