Fresno County leaders are fighting to retain the place-name “squaw” for an unincorporated town, after Native American leaders have pushed for its removal and state officials have taken steps to ban the word from the map.
As Breitbart News reported in 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law removing the word “squaw” — considered by some to be a slur against Native American women — from towns and other place-names within the state.
Breitbart News noted at the time:
AB 2022 declares: “The term ‘squaw’ is a racist and derogatory term that has historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for indigenous women.” It says the word must be removed from over 100 names in the state.
The bill, signed on the day designated as Native American Day, follows an ongoing effort by the U.S. Department of Interior, under its first Native American secretary, Deb Haaland, to remove the word “squaw” from place names around the country. (Both the state and federal efforts avoid actually spelling out the word “squaw,” using “sw___” instead.)
While the move has generally been accepted, it has outraged some people who are attached to the word and do not feel it to be racist or sexist. The town of Squaw Valley, in Fresno County, for example, population 3,511, it outraged at the change.
As the Los Angeles Times reported this week, Fresno County officials have placed a referendum, Measure B, on the ballot, which would give local authorities greater power to review place-names — and, perhaps, to block state efforts to erase names like “squaw” within the county.
The Times reported:
The Board of Supervisors has placed a measure on the March ballot asking voters to determine just who has the right to name — and rename — communities and geographic features in the county.
The measure does not specifically address Yokuts [formerly “Squaw”] Valley — and some people in the county argue the town’s name never changed because the federal government had no right to intervene. Measure B would clarify that such decisions belong squarely in the hands of county supervisors and amend the county charter to give the board “the duty and power to name or change the name of geographic features or place names within the unincorporated portions of the County of Fresno.” The board voted 3 to 2 to put it on the ballot.
A group of state lawmakers who pushed forward the 2022 legislation to ban the S-word from state landmarks have joined with Indigenous organizers in a campaign against Measure B.
Conservatives are thought to oppose renaming efforts, and the campaign around Measure B could increase voter turnout on both sides of the issue.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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