s02e08: Ascención Solórzano and the Mutsun Dictionary

Challenging Colonialism

Episode 8 features an interview with Marion Martinez and her daughter, Veronica, both of whom are members of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. They will be speaking about Marion’s great grandmother, Ascencion Solorsano de Cervantes, and mother, Martha Herrerra. Ascencion, who passed away in 1930, was the last fluent Mutsun speaker and one of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band’s beloved ancestors.

In 1929, Ascencion spent three months with Ethnographer and linguist John Peabody Harrington, who recorded thousands of pages of notes on Mutsun language, culture and history. Today, Marion, Veronica, and many other Amah Mutsun Tribal members draw on these important notes to learn about their ancestors. This season we have featured a series of stories about ’salvage anthropology’ and the damage done by scholars and activists towards Indigenous communities. This story helps show the complexity of this history, and ways in which contemporary Indigenous community members can sometimes draw on these records in important ways.

The speakers in this episode are: Veronica Martinez & Marion Martinez, both Amah Mutsun, interviewed by Martin Rizzo-Martinez.

Links for further reading:

Maria Ascención Solórsano (de Garcia y de Cervantes), Ed Ketchum, Amah Mutsun Tribal Historian (and descendant of Ascención)

The Long Journey to Revitalize a Native Language, University of Arizona News, Feb. 16, 2016

Reviving deep-rooted knowledge, Lisa Renner, UCSC NewsCenter, November 23, 2021

The Amah Mutsun's Battle to Preserve, Mark R. Day, ICT News, Sept 13, 2018

The Saint of Gilroy who helped save her culture and language, Robert Eliason, Benito Link, January 23, 2021

A Native American's Last Testament: Opera, Sasha Khokha, NPR Music, March 29, 2008

Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today, Randall Milliken, Laurence H. Shoup, and Beverly R. Ortiz, 2009

Chasing Voices: The Story of John Peabody Harrington (documentary), PBS

Challenging Colonialism is produced by Daniel Stonebloom & Martin Rizzo-Martinez. All interviews by Martin, all audio engineering and editing by Daniel. All music by G. Gonzales.