Interior Department launched a different process.Д¬haney said sheвЂ™s thankful to Haaland, the first Indigenous woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. While they were proceeding down their track, the head of the U.S. With guidance from adults, they looked into the name change process, started gathering community support and figured out the cost of changing those signs. вЂњIt took these girls who are younger and wiser than us to point out that itвЂ™s derogatory and offensive, and we should do something about it.вЂќ A federal database shows Alaska has 27 streams, lakes and other geographic features with names containing the word вЂњsquaw.вЂќ (Geographic Names Information System/USGS) вЂњItвЂ™s one of those things you just kind of take for granted,вЂќ said Dillingham school program coordinator Robyn Chaney. The creek is near the Dillingham airport so when visitors arrive, they first see a sign that says вЂњWelcome to Dillingham.вЂќ The next sign says вЂњSquaw Creek.вЂќ RELATED: Fifth graders campaign to change вЂsquawвЂ™ in Dillingham road name The adults around them began to consider the name, too.

They pondered it for about a week, then asked their teacher how they could change the name. вЂњI saw six signs with the word вЂsquawвЂ™ on it,вЂќ she said. One day, Alora counted the signs on her ride home. Some students have to take the Squaw Creek bus to school. Once the girls began to think about it, the name increasingly galled them. For white men, the creek became known as a place to find a Native wife.В Rather than naming the creek after one of the sisters, or using an Indigenous name, a racialized term for a Native woman stuck. The story is that in the early 1900s, before Dillingham got its name, seven sisters came to live in the area, and some settled near the creek. вЂњWe thought it was offensive,вЂќ Alora said. They have been trying to change the name since a visit to the local tribal office last year, when they learned of how the creek got its name.

In Dillingham, three sixth-grade girls could not be happier.ДЄlora Wassily, Trista Wassily and Harmony Larson live and attend school not far from DillinghamвЂ™s Squaw Creek - one of more than 20 geographic features in Alaska that contain that word. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Friday declared вЂњsquawвЂќ to be a derogatory term and kicked off a policy to change all federal place names that contain it. Trista Wassily, Alora Wassily, Harmony Larson and their teacher, Stephanie Jenson.

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