SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Two California lawmakers have proposed removing the word "squaw," a slur against Native American women, from all geographic features and place names in the state.
Assembly Bill 2022, introduced by Assemblyman James Ramos, D-Highland, and Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. Ramos said the word is an idiom that came into use during the westward expansion of America, and is not a tribal word.
"AB 2022 would ban the use of the S-word and establish a process for renaming locations with that offensive racial and sexist term which began as derogatory word used against Native American women. For decades, Native Americans have argued against the designation's use because behind that expression is the disparagement of Native women that contributes to the crisis of missing and murdered people in our community," Ramos said in a statement announcing the bill.
More than 100 locations in California contain the word as part of their name, according to Ramos' office.
In 2020, a Tahoe ski resort moved to change its name to remove the word, re-naming itself Palisades Tahoe.
Ramos, the first and only Native American to be elected to the California Legislature, was the author of the 2021 law that removed the statue of Father Junipero Serra from the Capitol grounds.
"The sad reality is that this term has been used for generations and normalized, even though it is a misogynistic and racist term rooted in the oppression and belittling of Indigenous women. AB 2022 begins to correct an ugly and painful part of our history by removing it from California's landmarks; it's the least we can do to help our indigenous women heal," Garcia said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of the Interior already has ordered the removal of the term from more than 700 sites on federal lands, and Maine, Minnesota, Montana and Oregon also have ordered the word struck from location names as well.
"Racist terms have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands. Our nation's lands and waters should be places to celebrate the outdoors and our shared cultural heritage — not to perpetuate the legacies of oppression," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.
