Yokuts Valley road sign vandalized for the second time in a month. ‘It’s disgraceful’

A Yokuts Valley highway sign that has been the subject of controversy was vandalized for the second time in one month.

Earlier this month, an eight-inch wooden plank with a derogatory term was plastered over the green road sign along Highway 180. Residents told The Bee they noticed the vandalism between Friday night and Saturday morning of Oct. 11 to 12 and that it was taken down within a day and a half. Then, on Monday afternoon residents and local law enforcement saw yellow paint covering the word “Yokuts.”

The vandalism is the latest sign of fierce resistance to the contentious name change to Yokuts Valley from local representatives and residents, who say the Fresno County foothill town’s soon-to-be-changed name, Squaw Valley, holds historic and local significance. The new sign was installed by the state in September.

Residents in favor of the new name said the vandalism is annoying, sad and disrespectful to Indigenous people. The term today is widely considered a sexist, racist and derogatory term against Native American women, akin to referring to a woman’s genitalia.

“It only takes one person to make the whole community look bad,” said Yokuts Valley resident Bayard Taylor.

Supervisor Nathan Magsig, who represents the town, told The Bee on Wednesday that he heard about the vandalism but hadn’t seen it. “I am not aware of some of that stuff that is going on, other than my staff has said I need to, at some point today, take a look at social media,” he said.

Lt. Kathy Curtice, a patrol commander in the Fresno County Sheriff Department in Area Four, said in an email that authorities noticed the most recent vandalism on Monday and are in touch with the California Department of Transportation.

“We do not have any information regarding who may have done it,” she said.

Alex Aguilera, a spokesperson for Caltrans, said in an email that they’ve alerted the project manager assigned to this project, who will coordinate with a contractor to address the vandalism.

In a third incident in September, the sign appeared to be intentionally bent out of shape. Caltrans confirmed they were aware of the vandalism and said a resident engineer and contractor in the area would be making repairs.

The name change of the unincorporated Fresno County community of 3,500 residents – a majority of which are white, according to the U.S. Census data – has received significant public attention from media and social justice advocacy organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.

The “Change S Valley” coalition was launched by Roman Rain Tree, a Fresno resident and member of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians and Choinumni People with family ties to the Squaw Valley area. Local tribes have been largely quiet about the name change.

In January 2022, Rain Tree formally petitioned for a name change with the federal U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which approved a name change the following year. But the January 2023 federal name change vote technically only applied to federal agencies and maps, according to a report by news nonprofit Fresnoland.

Fresno County has continued to use the former name in official communications. Fresno County Spokesperson Sonja Dosti said the county will implement any required changes after Jan. 1, 2025.

The term is being removed from places across the country. In November 2021, U.S. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency, declared the term to be derogatory and announced plans to remove it from 650 places nationwide. The state followed suit and in 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law to have the term removed from 100 places throughout the state by Jan. 1, 2025.

Some residents, primarily who are non-Native, disagree that the term is offensive. They say the term refers to a Native woman and the naming of the town wasn’t intended to offend local Native Americans.

Rick Fischer moved to the foothill community six years ago. He works from home in the informational technology sector, raises cattle and chickens on the side and enjoys the close access to nature. He thinks all of the attention on name change controversy is giving the town a bad rap.

“This is one of the friendliest towns,” Fischer told The Bee.

He, like many others, opposed the name change and feels that local voices have been ignored. He thought the change was “petty,” costly and unnecessary.

But, Fischer said, “I’m not a fan of vandalism, I don’t think that’s gonna do anything.”

‘It’s getting worse.’

Some locals weren’t surprised the sign was vandalized.

“It didn’t surprise us that the sign has been repeatedly vandalized, because they did say they were going to do that,” said Taweah Garcia and Shirley Guevara, member and vice chair of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians, respectively. (They spoke as Indigenous women and not in an official capacity representing the tribe.)

Garcia hoped the opposition would “die down” after the Yokuts Valley sign went up. That hasn’t happened, she said, “and it’s getting worse.”

Garcia, who lives with her family in nearby Dunlap, has been a vocal advocate for the name change and attended multiple community meetings related to the proposed changes. Nationwide efforts to remove the “S-word” have been around for years, she said, because the racial slur equates Native women to lower than dogs.

“I don’t know how many times we have to say that, but people just don’t get it, and some people are not going to get,” she said.

Critics of the vandalism say threats have been looming online for months.

In a March post in the “Squaw Valley, CA - The ORIGINAL 93675 Facebook group, someone wrote: “It would (be) a total SHAME if a new sign keeps disappearing, never to be seen again.”

“Or stomped on,” commented another Facebook user.

Garcia said it’s hard listening to the hurtful remarks toward Native Americans that she’s heard in public discussions, particularly one comment a white woman made in a May community meeting hosted by Magsig: “The Indians, whether they like it or not, are going to go into obsolescence, and Indians will become so obsolete no one will even know what an Indian is.”

“Amen,” another woman responded.

Multiple supporters of the name change interviewed by The Bee think the county’s locally elected supervisor is partly to blame.

“It doesn’t help when our District 5 Supervisor Nathan Magsig is fueling the fire – that doesn’t help,” Garcia said. She believes Magsig is giving people “false hope” by advocating for the former name.

“People are pretty strident – they’ve been encouraged,” said Yokuts Valley resident Linda Tubach.

“It’s disgraceful,” Taylor said.

Magsig has long said that name changes should originate from the local residents of the community, and criticized the federal and state name change process for not prioritizing local input.

“As a local supervisor, I can tell you that I think it’s important for local individuals to have a say in what their community needs to be called,” Magsig said. “When we issued a survey to the residents, over 87% indicated what they wanted,” which was to keep the original name.

Magsig initiated Fresno County’s April 2023 lawsuit against the state over the new law. A judge ruled in December that the county, as a political entity of the state, didn’t appear to have the standing to sue the state and said that only private citizens could bring forth lawsuits over First Amendment violations. The county is currently appealing the decision and Magsig is using his district budget to fund the appeal.

He also spearheaded a ballot measure during the March primary elections that asked voters to clarify that only the county should have the authority to change local names of unincorporated communities. The measure failed to pass and cost Fresno County voters $350,000 to put on the ballot, according to James Kus, the county’s top elections official.

As for the vandalized Yokuts Valley road sign, Tubach said she and others want Caltrans add a camera in front of the sign or move it in front of the sheriff’s substation. She also hoped for better conduct from neighbors and local leaders.

“I’d really like to think better of our community,” she said. “It’s time to embrace a new attitude.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2024, 2:58 PM.