Industry News
“The English word squaw is an ethnic and sexual slur, historically used for Indigenous North American women. Contemporary use of the term, especially by non-Natives, is considered offensive, derogatory, misogynist, and racist.”
– Wikipedia
Last week, Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows announced that it may change its name by removing the word ‘squaw’ from its name because that is a racial slur.
“We realize it is time to re-examine our use of the term ‘squaw’ and will be evaluating the options. We are committed to doing the right thing and being part of the solution toward equality and respect.”
– Ron Cohen, Squaw Alpine CEO told SnowBrains on 6/22/20
Now, the Olympic Valley, California ski resort is considering its next move with one option being to hold a summit with Native American Leaders to allow them to voice their opinions on this possible name change. The resort said Friday that it could invite regional Native American leaders and scholars to provide appropriate guidance about the renaming process.
Squaw Alpine CEO Ron Cohen told the Tahoe Daily Tribune that removing squaw from the resort would be a timely and costly process as the name appears all over the mountain, on everything from stores and signage to employee name tags. Cohen said that Squaw is also used outside of the ski resort in the broader community with the name being for street signs, and on other items like license plate frames and stickers.
You may be able to change the name but you can’t change history.
The history of Squaw Valley will always remain in literature, movies, historical publications and general lore of who and what came before, wiki definition or not.
Good luck w all that.
What would really be amazingly cool is if ski area management gave free tickets, free equipment rental, free lessons and free lodging to native american descendants.
That would make a much bigger statement than some marketing based name change eh?