The U.S. Department of the Interior is renaming over 650 geographical features in the country — five in Eastern Washington — that include a historic racial slur towards Native American women.
Those locations in Eastern Washington are in Stevens County, Pend Oreille County, Lincoln County and Garfield County, plus a peak in the Blue Mountains in the Umatilla National Forest. Soon, the word "squaw" will be removed from their names.
Public comments about suggested names can be submitted online or through mail and will be accepted by the Department of the Interior through April 25. More information on submitting comments can be found on the department's website.
The renaming process is being expedited by the current Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, so that it will take months to rename these features rather than years.
Concerns about the shortened timeline, however, were raised by the Washington state Committee on Geographic Names in a letter sent to the Department of the Interior in April.
According to the committee, Washington state law requires multiple public comment opportunities and tribal consultation before changing the names of features in the state.
“The committee has no problem with renaming these areas,” says the committee’s communications manager, Natalie Johnson. “They just don’t think that the names that the Department of the Interior have suggested have been considered thoroughly and have taken into account feelings of local residents and particularly tribes in the areas.”
Some of these Interior-suggested names for various lakes, rivers and geographic features listed in the letter were Franklin D. Roosevelt and Columbia, which the committee felt weren’t appropriate solutions given the reason for the name changes.
“We believe that a diligent effort must be made to identify the specific women or women’s activities for which these places were named, and to reflect that history in the renaming process,” it wrote.
Generally the state committee is responsible for renaming local features, but since this slur is present in so many locations across the country, the Department of the Interior is heading the operation.
The committee will still have jurisdiction to reconsider the Department of the Interior’s chosen names, according to Johnson.
“In the future, the state committee could reconsider these names and give those areas new names based on input from tribes or area residents,” she says.
The committee is holding a meeting on April 26 at 10 am that will include a public comment opportunity at the end.
