For years, Native American residents of Fresno County have campaigned to remove the word squaw

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from the name of an unincorporated town in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Many Native Americans say the word has been used as a slur and insult against Native women, part of a broader continuation of violence against them. In 2022, organizers scored a victory when the U.S

Department of the

Interior, which aimed to remove the “S-word” from federal lands, redesignated the city as Yokuts Valley for federal use. That same year, the California legislature passed a measure requiring the term to be removed from place names and geographic areas. statewide landmarks by 2025.

But despite receiving support from the federal government, state lawmakers and California’s governor, Native American activists are frustrated that Fresno County leaders are fighting the name change. The Supervisory Board has

placed

a measure on the March ballot asking voters to determine who has the right to name and rename communities and geographic features in the county.

The measure does not specifically affect Yokuts Valley, and some people in the province argue the city’s name was never changed because the federal government had no right to intervene. Measure B would clarify that such decisions belong entirely in the hands of the county supervisors and amend the county statute to give the board the duty and power to name geographic features or place names within the unincorporated portions of the County of Fresno or to change. The board voted 3

Unpleasant

2 to place it on the ballot.

A group of state lawmakers who advanced 2022 legislation to ban the S-word on state monuments have joined indigenous organizers in a campaign against Measure B.

“Fresno County is special because they’ve had a really hard time,” said Morning Star Gali, executive director of Indigenous Justice, an organization that tracks California’s progress in renaming geographic sites that contain the term.

Scholars have struggled over the origins and historical use of the word. Some say the word originated as a general term for indigenous women. Others, including Gali, say the term has taken on a darker tone that denigrates indigenous women and relegates them to subhuman status. Merriam-Webster labels the word offensive, dated and disparaging.

“Erasure and invisibility, that’s what we were fighting against,” Gali said. “It’s not just a word. It is a word that contains that history, that context and that meaning.

Supervisor Nathan Magsig, who represents Yokuts Valley, said he pushed for Measure B in response to what he saw as “a lot of changes” happening with little input from people living in the communities where name change efforts are taking place. He said Yokuts Valley residents largely opposed renaming the community in a survey he conducted.

“This is a local issue,” Magsig said. “Measure B is an effort to not only help with that process, but also relates to other changes happening all around us.”

Native Americans who led the name change say they are baffled that a district official is trying to undo work that involved community input. Roman Rain Tree, a member of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians, which has ancestral ties to the region, led a public petition and filed an appeal with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

Magsig yes

“

[Magsig’s]

inciting people, making people angry, keeping the chaos going, allowing the chaos to continue,” said Taweah Garcia, a member of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians. ‘We understand that some people may not agree. We know some people are in favor of the name change.”

Official efforts to rename places with the S-word began in 2021 when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold that office,

take on the role,

banned the term from federal lands and ordered the Council for Geographic Names to begin

the process of

renaming more than 660 valleys, lakes, creeks and other federal sites that bore the term. Haaland called the term derogatory and said the country’s lands and waters should be places to celebrate the outdoors and our shared cultural heritage, not perpetuate the legacy of oppression.

The state law banning use of the term gives an advisory committee the authority, in communications with local tribes and officials, to remove the libel from cities and geographic place names by January 1, 2025.

We oppose this attempt to circumvent a lawfully passed law,” Assemblyman James C. Ramos (D-Highland), a Native American and author of the bill, said in a statement. “Removing the S-word as a place name is about choosing not to use a word that denigrates women and Native Americans.

Magsig questions whether the term is really that derogatory, stressing that the bill’s 2025 name change deadline means the valley’s name has not been officially changed.

Is there a name that isn’t offensive to anyone? Magsig said. “Names are identities for some people. Yes, history is not perfect, but we should not erase that.”

Fresno County is also fighting the state’s renaming campaign on a legal level. The county filed a lawsuit against the state last year, saying the name change imposed on Yokuts Valley violates the county’s right to free speech. A judge dismissed the claim, finding the province had no legal standing. The province has announced that it will appeal.

Kenneth Hansen, professor of political science at Cal State

University,

Fresno, said Magsig and other conservative supervisors are using the issue to appeal to the county’s Republican base and increase turnout as they run for re-election. He’s doubling down on this culture war type stuff to try to get through the primaries and possibly the general election, said Hansen, a Native American. Measure B is conservative optics.

The Native Americans pushing to eradicate the use of the term in Fresno County say place names for cities, meadows, mountains and lakes should be based on respect and not a return to oppression. Naming a city with a slur “that does not honor indigenous women,” said Garcia, who lives in Dunlap, a community bordering Yokuts Valley.

Shirley Guevara, an elder of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians, acknowledged that change has come slowly, as was the case with the decades-long campaign to get the Washington, D.C., football team to remove redskin from its name.

Magsig declined to speculate on whether supervisors would return Yokuts Valley to its former name if Measure B passes or seek an alternative like Bear Valley, which many residents prefer. For now, he’s focusing on getting the measure passed.

The next step is figuring out what voters want, he said.