FRESNO, Calif. — The rural town of Squaw Valley in eastern Fresno County is now facing federal, state and local efforts to change its name as part of a national push to remove the word “squaw” from places across the United States.
The Department of the Interior, in announcing it removed the word from nearly 650 geographic features, last week called it “an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur,” particularly for indigenous women. It’s now widely considered so derogatory that the Interior Department only referred to it as “Sq_” in its news release.
At the state level, California legislators passed AB 2022 last month, a bill that requires the word be removed from places across the state by Jan. 1, 2025. It now awaits a signature from Gov. Gavin Newsom, what some speculate could come on Sept. 23, California Native American Day. The state also expanded its work assessing place names a couple years ago through the California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names and California Natural Resources Agency.
