Date of Birth:
1855Date of Death:
1930SECTORS:
BIO:
Ascencion Solorsano was born in San Juan Bautista in 1855. She was one of the last fluent speakers of the Mutsun language, a community leader, as well as a healer and herbal expert. She shared the story of the Mutsun people with the anthropologist John Peabody Harrington and worked with him to record the language and culture of her people. Her granddaughter, Martha Herrera, wrote all the notes for Harrington while he interviewed her. There are over 78,000 pages of these recordings in the Smithsonian.
She was known as the “Saint of Gilroy” because she always provided help to community members in need. She was a healer in her community and had extensive knowledge of Mutsun medicinal plants. She identified many of these plants and described their medicinal uses during her interviews with Harrington, preserving traditional knowledge for generations to come.
Though she passed away in January 1930, Solorsano’s legacy lives on through her descendants and tribe, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. She was inducted into the Gilroy Hall of Fame in 1992. In 2009, UC Santa Cruz dedicated the Amah Mutsun Relearning Garden in their arboretum. This garden contains plants that Solorsano mentioned in her interviews with Harrington. In addition to this, a middle school named in her honor was opened in Gilroy in 2003.
Womanhood is a public art and digital media project that promotes the historical contributions of women to Santa Clara County. https://womanhoodproject.org/
Womanhood is supported by the County of Santa Clara Office of Women’s Policy.

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