Contributions and Distinctions
Laura Fish Somersal collaborated extensively with UC Berkeley linguists — including Sydney Lamb (1955), Jesse Sawyer (1959–1986), and Harvey Carlson (1980s) — as well as with UC Santa Barbara linguists Charles Li and Sandra Thompson (1975–1990). Her work, supported by the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages and now archived in the California Language Archive, contributed to a Wappo dictionary (1965), text collection (1977), grammatical sketch (1991), and several specialized linguistic studies.
Biographical Sketch
Laura Fish Somersal (1892-1990) was born Dolores Fish. She was raised bilingual in Southern Pomo (her father’s language) and Wappo (her mother’s), Laura Fish Somersal became one of the most celebrated basket weavers of 20th-century California. Because she cared for her blind mother and stayed within her community, she was able to maintain fluency in Wappo rather than being sent to an English-only boarding school. She later demonstrated and taught weaving in museums in New York, at the University of California, and within her community. Her baskets are held in collections at the Smithsonian, the Oakland Museum of California, and other major institutions.