[5] Risling Baldy received her Ph.D. in Native American studies with an emphasis in feminist theory and research from the University of California, Davis.
[2] Her great uncle, David Risling, founded the Native American Studies program at University of California, Davis.
Her membership of the Hoopa Valley provided a personal account in her debut book of the revitalization of the tribe's women's coming-of-age ceremony, The Flower Dance, that had not been fully practiced for several decades until recently.
The revitalization occurred as the women of the tribe began to recognize the importance of Native traditions, and bring to life what was only a memory at the time.
The Flower Dance was once a regularly held event, but the California Gold Rush in the mid-nineteenth century was the stem of its destruction.
Native women were targeted in the California genocide through the invasion of their land by miners and missionaries that caused lasting trauma on the Hupa people.