(RE)NAMING AND RACIALIZATION — Palisades Tahoe, CA, USA
Edited from my final project for GEOG50AC at UC Berkeley
Introduction
Squaw Valley Meadows, Squaw Ski Resort, Squaw Creek, Squaw Valley, Squaw Lake” — do the names sound normal to you? If so, the normalization of a stereotypical name has been successful.
The renaming of “Palisades Tahoe” in September 2021 is an indication of our society moving forward and recognizing the harm of socialization.
“Palisades Tahoe” is a resort located near Lake Tahoe, California. It was previously known as “Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows Resort” since its founding in 1949. However, it was renamed this September due to the “derogatory and offensive” nature of the word “squaw,” according to the official website (Tahoe P., 2021).
Across the United States, 1,008 place names use the term “squaw,” as shown in Photo 2(USGS, 2021). This article looks into the historical background of the word “Squaw,’’ how the original naming represents how the European settlers and Americans racialize indigenous people, and how the process of renaming symbolizes a social change.
Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System. Accessed Dec 1, 2021.
What is wrong with the word “Squaw”?
Source: Philip Reade Collection of Native American Photographs by William S. Soule. Huntington Library. 1868. Photo Archiveshttps://hdl.huntington.org/digital/collection/p15150coll2/id/6502
The word “squaw” is defined as “an American Indian woman or wife,” according to Oxford Dictionary. In the colonial context, it referred to indigenous women, as seen in colonial journals and books at that time.
The documented first use of this word was by the governor of Plymouth colony, Edward Winslow, who described “sachim’s wife’’ as “squa-sachim” in a journal entry in 1624 (Goddard, 1997).
Although the word was not offensive originally, the meaning evolved as people used it more often to identify indigenous women. For example, General George Crook wrote “ it was not infrequently an occurrence for an Indian to be shot down in cold blood or a squaw to be raped by some brute’’ in his 1850s autobiography (Merskin, 2010).
The word “squaw” in Crook’s autobiography implied that “Indian squaws” were suffering at the hands of Europeans. His usage of the word hints at the fundamental reason why the word “squaw” turned into a sexual and racist insult to genitalia” in the Mohawk language. Over times, a derogatory meaning had been given to the word as people often depicted indigenous women as “ugly, dirty, subservient, abused squaws” in literature, films and TV shows (Mihesuah, 1997).
This prejudice towards indigenous women originated from the assumptions of the European invaders. Males were dominant in European societies in the 1400s-1800s. When they came to the “New World,” they projected their gender ideology onto the indigenous society. They held bias towards not only European women but also toward indigenous women. In their understanding, there were only two types of indigenous women — “Indian princess” or “squaws” (Mihesuah, 1997). They assume indigenous women were less important than men in society. Women were often not mentioned in their records and documents in the “New World”(Merskin, 2010). As a result, there was limited documentation about indigenous women, which led to misunderstandings about indigenous women in later times. Worse still, the hunting of indigenous people shows how the European settler and Americans want to eliminate indigenous people. The hunting of indigenous people significantly lowers the population from 300,000 to 150,000 from the 1800s to 1850, and 25,000 by 1900 in addition to disease and starvation (Bauer, 2014).
Throughout the centuries, the truth has been buried and neglected. In fact, in most indigenous societies, women hold high esteem. While men were responsible for hunting and fighting, women played an important role in decision-making. Equality is valued in most nations. For example, politically, women were council members in over half of the tribes in the U.S. Even for the councils without women representatives, indigenous men respected their women and took their advice to the council. The women also had the right to speak in the council and question unsatisfactory representatives (Mihesuah, 1997). Furthermore, women have the right to vote and choose the tribal leader and dictate the fate of the prisoners (Merskin, 2010).
The social status of women in the indigenous community was even higher than that of women in European society at that time. In the modern world, indigenous women can pursue their dreams and careers. The university graduation rate of indigenous women is higher than that of men (Merskin, 2010).
What do Washoe Tribal members think?
Washoe Tribe is the people who live in the Tahoe area. Photo 3 depicts the peaceful environment in Da.aw (Lake Tahoe) area before settlers came in. However, since the California gold rush and silver rush in Nevada in 1850 onward, many miners and immigrants came to the land disrupting Washoe’s way of living and depleting the natural resources they used to enjoy. Their lands include the valley where Palisade Tahoe resort is located (WasheshuTribe, n.d.).
Washoe Tribe does not want the name the place “squaw,” according to NPR report (Chappell, A Tahoe Ski Resort Ditches Its Name, Saying It’s Racist And Sexist, 2021).
“The word itself is a constant reminder of the unjust treatment of the Native people, of the Washoe people,” said Darrel Cruz of the Washoe Tribe Historic Preservation Office. “It is a reminder of those periods when it was not good for us. It’s a term that was inflicted upon us by somebody else and we don’t agree with it”. (Chappell, A Tahoe Ski Resort Ditches Its Name, Saying It’s Racist And Sexist, 2021)
Anthropologist Les w. field noted that nominative cartography is the power to erase, displace and replace in the service of colonial projects. He said the naming practices would “erase and replace constitutive features of social and cultural landscapes” (Les W. Field, Alan Leventhal, and Rosemary Cambra, 2013).
The naming of the “Squaw Valley” demonstrates how the settlers dehumanize indigenous people — settlers intrude on the land and exploit the resources, trying to displace the people who originally live there and erase the original meaning and memories of the place to indigenous people. As a Palestinian American historian, Rashid Khalidi describes, “This process of naming [places] is an attempt to privilege one dimension of a complex reality at the expense of others, with the ultimate aim of blotting out or decisively subordinating them.” Not only do indigenous peoples lose control over their homelands but also over documenting historical memory. It disconnects the place from the people, which in turn consolidates the powers of the newcomers, and magnifies the belief that indigenous people are inferior as a process of socialization.
Renaming and Social Change
Why now, but not earlier or later?
The disrespect against Indigenous people continues throughout the 19th century and early 20th century. Historial examples include the attempt to “maintain colonial power” over the indigenous population by building colonial settlements on top of existing indigenous villages in Los Angeles in the mid-19th century(Quintana, 2015).
The situation seemed to be improved during the racial justice movement in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Bauer, in the 1960s-1980s, Ishi, a native who has been hunted by settlers and studied by contemporary anthologists, became the symbol for the tribal sovereignty movement, where Indigenous people fought for self-determination (Bauer, 2014). On the government level, the effort to replace offensive terms begins in the 1960s, when the government renamed some place-names containing slurs for Black and Japanese people.
However, the problem with “Squaw Valley” did not seem to be taken series in the 1960s. Photos before the 1950s are very limited, showing the land was not well-documented before the establishment of the resort in 1949. Photos 4 and 5 are the earliest set of photos found in the “Squaw Valley” area. The photos depict the lodge and ski lift in 1951. Since the early 1950s, the area started to serve as a recreational skiing and retreat destination.
In the late 1950s during the Cold-War period, the United States wanted to develop its powers. The US won the bid to host the 1960 Winter Olympics. By the time Charles R. Blyth, chairman of the California Olympic Commission signs the first construction contract for the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics in Oct 1960, the area had started the journey to economic development.
Soon after, extensive high-quality Olympics facilities has been built (Photo 7), turning the Valley into an international spotlight. Hosting the Olympics enhanced US’ influence in international sports events and provides an amazing opportunity for economic growth in the area. It strengthened the powers of the US, especially during the Cold-Way period.
A video made by Harrah’s Reno and Lake Tahoe, a hotel and casino, in 1960, described how facilities were developed from scratch, especially for the 1960 Olympics and how people and athletes were enjoying the place (Tahoe H. R., 1960). The happy background music in the video gives a feeling of pleasure and relaxation. It conveyed that Squaw Valley has “the best facilities” as the narrator emphasized in the video. The video shows that in 1960, “Squaw Valley” was portrayed as a place with high-quality Winter Olympics, that attracted athletes, and tourists. It also tells us that people seem not to care about the offensive nature of the word “Squaw” at that time.
Today
Since 2020 large-scale historic against racism and white supremacy in the US after the murder of George Floyd, cities, schools, and parks across the US began reconsidering controversial names with racist histories, including the “Sue-meg State Park” in California in the request of Yurok Tribe (Wear, 2021). Building names like “Barrows and LeConte Halls” at UC Berkeley are also renamed (Kell, 2020).
The social atmosphere today is different from the 1960s. People have been increasingly recognizing the harms of racialization and stereotype of indigenous people. Racial justice and indigenous rights have become more valued. Efforts have been made to rename offensive terms against indigenous people and other racial minorities. The “Squaw Creek” in Central Iowa was renamed “Ioway Creek” in Feb 2021 before Palisade Tahoe’s renaming (KCCI8, 2021). A bill “The Reconciliation in Place Names Act” which directs the Department of the Interior to rename geographic features with offensive place names, was also introduced to Congress in July 2021 (Congress, 2021).
Soon after the renaming of Palisade Tahoe in September 2021, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland formally declared “squaw” to be a “derogatory” term and ordered a task force to find replacement names for valleys, lakes, creeks, and other sites on federal lands that use the word (Interior, 2021). The order would affect more than 650 federal land units, according to the press release (Interior, 2021).
However, the order does not address all the names with the S-word. “Squaw Valley” in Fresno County, California is one of the examples.
Indigenous people and supporters have been protesting the name and requesting a change of name (Anguiano, 2021). Photo 11 depicts Roman Rain Tree, a lifelong resident of Fresno and member of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians and Choinumni tribe, and his 10-year-old daughter, Lola holding signs written “Rename ‘Squaw Valley’” and “I am not ‘Squaw’” in front of the town sign for “Squaw Valley” in Fresno County. This is a form of resistance against the disrespectful naming of“Squaw”. The resistance against racialization reminds us of Indian resistance against the missions back them, in which they tried to escape the mission. They did not want to be shaped to become want the colonizers wanted. They fight against shapeshifting in the frontier process (Sandos, 1998). Similarly, today, indigenous people stand up against the belief that they are inferior. They are taking back control of the naming of their land.
Conclusion
The offensive term “squaw” was being used by European settlers and Americans very frequently that they even named places using the term. They made the offensive term official, racializing indigenous people as inferior. In the 1960s, when racial justice emerged, the term “squaw valley” has not been paid attention to yet, because the place was portrayed as an economic and recreational area where the winter Olympics was hosted.
Not until recent years, did the S-word start to be recognized when the callings for racial justice and indigenous rights amplified. The renaming of “Palisade Tahoe” demonstrates a social change and the determination of this generation to resist socialization. The renaming of Palisade Tahoe and the recent government efforts in renaming and recognition of offensive names also show the willingness of the government and some companies to correct mistakes made in earlier days. The new name “Palisade Tahoe” symbolizes the beginning of actions being taken to correct the wrongdoings and racialization against indigenous people in the past.
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