California bill would ban the racist term ‘squaw’ in location names

Rising up on the San Manuel Indian Reservation in San Bernardino County, Assemblymember James C. Ramos mentioned “squaw” was one in all many disparaging phrases hurled at his Native American neighborhood.

Now Ramos is one in all a number of lawmakers proposing to strip the phrase —a slur aimed toward Indigenous ladies — from the title of greater than 100 locations throughout the state.

“There needs to be no motive why there shouldn’t be help to alter the S-word, that’s so degrading to Native American ladies, within the 12 months 2022,” mentioned Ramos, the primary — and at the moment solely — Indigenous member of the state Legislature.

Meeting Invoice 2022, launched by Assemblymembers Ramos (D-Highland) and Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) final month, would require a state committee to rename locations and geographic options bearing the time period starting Jan. 1, 2024. Native leaders would have about six months to counsel a brand new title below the invoice. A process could be established to permit residents and tribal representatives to submit suggestions. Indicators, interpretive markers or printed materials containing the time period couldn’t get replaced if the proposed laws goes into impact.

The invoice arrives amid a contentious debate over whether or not to rename the city of Squaw Valley — situated about midway between Fresno and Kings Canyon Nationwide Park — which Ramos mentioned impressed him to carry the invoice ahead.

Native American-led supporters of the rename marketing campaign for months have butted heads with Fresno County Supervisor Nathan Magsig, who has mentioned there shouldn’t be a blanket prohibition on a time period.

“What makes one thing hateful is the context and the way the individual’s coronary heart is, who’s making these statements,” Magsig instructed The Instances in January. Magsig, the valley’s consultant, added that he had not discovered proof that the valley’s title was generated in malice.

To suppose the title isn’t derogatory “is de facto appalling,” Ramos mentioned. “The voice of California’s first individuals, shouldn’t that be heard and introduced into the dialogue of why it needs to be renamed?”

Some students imagine “squaw” got here from the Algonquin language, which was spoken by many tribes on the East Coast and initially meant “lady.”

However in European languages, the phrase morphed into one thing darker. It will definitely unfold to Western areas the place Indigenous tribes spoke languages unrelated to Algonquin.

Suzan Proven Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute and a number one Native American rights advocate, mentioned “squaw” was popularized by French and British trappers, who conscripted Indigenous ladies as slave laborers as early because the 1600s.

“The time period has traditionally been used as an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, notably for Indigenous ladies,” the Division of the Inside mentioned in a information launch.

Permitting the slur to dwell on in place names “perpetuates and permits for violence” right now, mentioned Tedde Simon, a racial and financial justice advocate for the ACLU. Simon, who’s Native American, pointed to California’s alarmingly excessive charges of lacking and murdered Indigenous ladies, a disturbing development echoed throughout the nation.

Montana, Oregon, Maine and Minnesota are among the many states which have already banned utilizing the time period in place names.

In November, the Secretary of the Inside Deb Haaland, who’s Native American, declared the time period “squaw” to be derogatory and established a process pressure to seek out substitute names for locations on federal land. Simply over every week in the past, the division launched an inventory of candidate substitute names for greater than 660 geographic options.

Twelve proposals to exchange “squaw” are listed by the California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names, together with Damalusung Lake for Squaw Lake and Paac Kü̱vü̱hü̱’ok for Squaw Tank. Numm Valley is proposed for Fresno County’s Squaw Valley, although it could be adjusted. Nuum means “the individuals” within the Western Mono language.

Some locations have proactively eliminated the time period. In September, the historic Squaw Valley ski resort in Lake Tahoe modified its title after its house owners acknowledged the title was offensive.

Below the proposed California regulation, new place names ought to “honor and acknowledge the tribes, cultures and indigenous languages particular to the geographic area in query,” together with drawing on names beforehand utilized by tribes.