Over the past year, the U.S. Department of the Interior has changed the names of hundreds of rivers, mountains, parks, and other geographic sites on federal land because they used racist terms.

That push has now reached the Golden State.

A new law will remove the word squaw from nearly 100 landmarks and place names across California.

That word means woman in some Native American languages,

but over the centuries, others turned it into a slur aimed at indigenous women.

And today, some say it's as offensive, as misogynistic,

as any other anti-woman insult you could imagine.

So Governor Gavin Yusum signed a bill last month

that's going to strip the term from the names of towns, parks, lakes,

and other places across California.

Native Americans and others are celebrating the new law,

but these are names that in some places date back generations.

So in a place like, say, Squaw Valley, not everyone's happy.

You're trying to change history.

Squas is a California Indian word.

I'm Gustavo Ariano.

You're listening to The Times, Essential News, from the LA Times.

It's Monday, October 24, 2022.

Today, why the fight to remove the word squaw from public spaces

is still raging on despite the new laws.

Lila Siedman is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who has covered this controversy.

Lila, welcome the Times.

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