s02e08: Ascención Solórzano and the Mutsun Dictionary

Challenging Colonialism by Martin Rizzo-Martinez & Daniel Stonebloom

Episode notes

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. Th ... 

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