Travis Armstrong, JD, MA, RPA
Thanks for checking in with me
Archaeologists and government officials must stop being the self-proclaimed narrators of being Native American and our cultural histories. I have challenged these notions as a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer in Southern California, the Curator of Native American Cultures at UCLA, and a CAL FIRE regional archaeologist.
I am the Secretary/Treasurer of the Register of Professional Archaeologists and serve on three committees of the Society for American Archaeology and as the SAA Curation Interest Group chair. I am a past president of the San Diego County Archaeological Society.
I went to the UCLA School of Law and received a master's degree in anthropology from Temple University and second master's degree in applied archaeology from Cal State San Bernardino.
I started writing for my neighborhood newspaper at age 14, became a supervisory editor in a Washington news bureau covering Congress operated by Dow Jones & Co., wrote editorials and columns as a member of the Editorial Board of the San Jose Mercury News, then became the first Tribal member to be the editorial page editor of an American daily newspaper while in Santa Barbara. I hosted a live radio program for six years in Santa Barbara as well. The New York Times said of me: Travis Armstrong "has become a magnet for discontent ... because of this sharply worded editorials about local officials." Vanity Fair said: Travis Armstrong has "distinguished himself with editorials that are harsh and acerbic." I have won five awards from the Native American Journalists Association including best column writing in the United States at a mainstream newspaper, a best editorial pages award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and a Genesis Award for editorial writing from the Humane Society of the United States.
I am an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Reservation Band of Ojibwe, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, and today in words and deeds I advocate for Native Americans in anthropology.
The picture is of me at a maple sugar bush at Leech Lake. I now live in Honolulu. Thanks for listening.
Check out my other site on Chief Buffalo and Benjamin Armstrong
Devoted to the history of my ancestors, Lake Superior Chippewa leader Chief Buffalo and the intrepid Benjamin Armstrong, in the mid-1800s in the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. Read about their "illegal" trip to Washington to find the president to stop with removal of the Tribe from its homeland and the story behind the two Chief Buffalo busts in the U.S. Capitol. Click here for www.chiefbuffalo.com