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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Federal officers have provide you with an inventory of potential alternative names for a whole bunch of geographic options in three dozen states that embrace the phrase “squaw,” kicking off a public remark interval that can run via late April.
U.S. Inside Secretary Deb Haaland in November formally declared the time period derogatory and initiated a course of to take away the phrase from use by the federal authorities and to interchange different present derogatory place names.
Haaland mentioned in an announcement Tuesday that phrases matter, significantly because the company works to make the nation’s public lands and waters accessible and welcoming to individuals of all backgrounds.
“Consideration of those replacements is a giant step ahead in our efforts to take away derogatory phrases whose expiration dates are lengthy overdue,” she mentioned. “All through this course of, broad engagement with tribes, stakeholders and most people will assist us advance our targets of fairness and inclusion.”
The company is planning three digital conferences to seek the advice of with tribes in March, and written feedback shall be accepted via April 24.
Below Haaland’s order, the primary motion by a job pressure made up of officers from a number of federal departments was to finalize a call to interchange a full spelling of the derogatory time period with “sq――” for all official associated communications.
It additionally shall be as much as the duty pressure to prioritize the checklist of alternative names and make suggestions to the Board on Geographic Names earlier than it meets later this yr.
As a part of the method, the U.S. Geological Survey got here up with 5 candidate names for every function. The checklist contains greater than 660 websites in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Idaho and lots of different states.
Within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, the Board on Geographic Names took motion to eradicate using derogatory phrases associated to Black and Japanese individuals. Over the previous twenty years, the board has acquired 261 proposals to interchange geographic options with squaw within the identify, based on the Inside Division.
The board additionally voted in 2008 to alter the identify of a outstanding Phoenix mountain from Squaw Peak to Piestewa Peak to honor Military Spc. Lori Piestewa, the primary Native American girl to die in fight whereas serving within the U.S. navy.
The Arizona Senate just lately handed a memorial asking the federal authorities to interchange the names of geographic options within the Grand Canyon area with Native American names to advertise an understanding of and appreciation for the “distinctive and vital cultures and heritage of the Grand Canyon’s tribal peoples.”
Lawmakers in that state are also contemplating a measure that may require the Arizona Board on Geographic and Historic Names to rename something that features the phrase squaw.
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