US changes names of places with racist term for Native women

By MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The U.S. government has renamed hundreds of peaks, lakes, streams and other geographical features that carry a racist and misogynistic term for a Native American woman. New names for nearly 650 places bearing the offensive word “squaw” include the mundane, peculiar and Indigenous language terms. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the changes Thursday after an almost yearlong process. Haaland is from Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico and the first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency. Private businesses in some cases have taken the lead on changing the offensive term. They include a California ski resort that changed its name last year.