US renames 5 places that used racial slurs for Indigenous woman

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The US Department of the Interior announced Thursday that it has renamed five locations that previously included a racist term for a Native American woman.

FILE – In this photo released by the Office of the Secretary of the Interior Department, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland speaks at the Sabinoso Wilderness in Las Vegas, NM July 17, 2021. The U.S. Department of the Interior Interior renamed five locations in four states that featured a racist term for a Native American woman through Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. (Felicia A. Salazar/US Department of the Interior via AP, File)

The renamed sites are in California, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, completing a year-long process to remove the historically offensive word “squaw” from geographic names across the country.

“Words matter, especially in our work to ensure our country’s public lands and waters are accessible and welcoming to people of all backgrounds,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. She called the word “harmful.”

Haaland, who took office in 2021, is the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency.

In September, the Home Office announced its final vote on proposals to change the names of nearly 650 sites containing the word. The agency conducted an additional review of seven locations, all of which were considered unincorporated populated places. Five of them were changed in Thursday’s announcement.

In western North Dakota, the new name Homesteaders Gap was chosen by members of a small community as a nod to their local history.

Mark Fox, tribal chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, welcomed the change, telling the Bismarck Tribune that the insult “really causes serious and strong emotions and resistance to this term.” In a statement to The Associated Press, he said it was long overdue and “we are delighted that the racially insensitive and offensive name has been removed.”

But McKenzie County Board of Commissioners member Joel Brown said many in the area “felt very strongly opposed” to the change. Brown, who is white, said he and others prefer as little interference as possible from the federal government because “generally we find that they are out of touch with what the culture and economy is here.”

Two other newly named locations are the Central California Valley communities of Loybas Hill, which translates to “young woman”, proposed by the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians; and the Yokuts Valley.

The others are Partridgeberry, Tennessee and Lynn Creek, Texas.

The decision has a long precedent. The Home Office ordered the renaming of places with derogatory terms for blacks and Japanese in 1962 and 1974, respectively.

Last year alone, authorities renamed 28 Wisconsin sites to remove a racist word, a panel recommended renaming a Colorado mountain linked to a massacre, and the feds renamed hundreds of peaks , lakes, streams and other geographical features with racist and misogynist. terms.

You can find more news from across the state here.

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