The Renaming of Squaw Valley

The sign at the entrance to the resort says Palisades Tahoe. It has said that since September of twenty twenty-one.

Before that it said Squaw Valley, a name the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California had been asking to retire for years. The word is a slur in their language, documented as such, and the request to change it was neither ambiguous nor new when it was finally granted.

The consultation process between the ski resort and the tribe took time. The renaming was announced alongside statements from tribal members who described it as meaningful, as recognition of something that mattered. The Alta Journal's coverage in twenty twenty-one recorded those voices directly.

And then the tribe, in the same statements, named what had not changed. The land the resort is built on is land the Washoe never ceded. No treaty was ever signed transferring the valley from the Washoe people to anyone. The renaming was a cultural act. It was not a legal act. No land transferred. No revenue-sharing agreement was attached. No traditional Washoe sites within the resort's boundaries were restored to tribal access.

The mountain is still beautiful. The name is better. The question the Washoe Tribe has been asking, which is about land and access and sovereignty and not about what the sign says, remains open.

This is what partial reckoning looks like. It is real and it is insufficient and both of those things can be true at the same time.