Women’s Literary Festival

Event Day: March 25 – Wednesday
Time:  5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
Location:  Santa Barbara  Historical Museum 
135 E. De La Guerra St. SB 93101

 A literary salon will be the venue for the next Women’s Literary Festival.  This intimate evening will  give  an up close and personal touch to the  conversation with the author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.  An accomplished writer, she incorporates  her background as a historian, a researcher, and activist  to promote  social justice as she  advocates for  indigenous natives rights, women’s rights and international human rights. Her activist work has created the following books on indigenous rights.  Her first book, The Great Sioux Nation: An oral History”, was published in 1977 (reissued in 2013) and presented as the fundamental document at the first international conference on Indians of the Americas, held at United Nations’ headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. It was followed by two other books: Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico (1980) and Indians of the Americas: Human Rights and Self-Determination (1984). She also edited two anthologies on Native American economic development, while heading the Institute for Native American Development at the University of New Mexico.  Additional books include:  All the Real Indians Died Off and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans co authored with Diana Gilio Whitaker (2016),  An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United Sates (2014) which has also been adopted  for the Young Adult reader,  Blood on the Border (2005), and Roots of Resistance (1980) and Indians of the Americas (1984).  

A veteran of the women’s liberation movement  she has written Outlaw Woman: Memoir of the War Years (2001) She has contributed to the publication  Sisterhood is Powerful:  An Anthology of Writings From The Women’s Liberation Movement edited by Robin Morgan (1970) and has written about her own background, Red Dirt, Growing up Okie (1997).   
 
Her last book, Loaded A Disarming History (2018)  Takes a close look at the origins of this country’s aberrant relationship with guns.

She is a Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at Cal State Hayward where she helped developed the department of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Study. 

Refreshments will be served.