What’s in a name? Yokuts Valley fight, new Clovis Unified school a study in contrasts | Opinion
Two news stories that simultaneously appeared on the fresnobee.com homepage recently caught my eye.
Both were about place names that should, in a small way, correct past wrongs. But the similarities end there.
One article was about Clovis Unified’s decision to name a new elementary school after Satoshi “Fibber” Hirayama, a former district teacher and administrator who led an incredibly courageous and distinguished life until his death in 2021 at age 91.
The other was about the mystifying closed-session vote by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors to take legal action against the state of California over the renaming of Squaw Valley to Yokuts Valley.
Two separate naming decisions. One not the least bit controversial. The other incredibly so, at least in certain quarters.
I consider myself fortunate to have known Hirayama, and to be able to spend time with him during his declining years. For a person to overcome so much (locked up three years as a boy in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II), accomplish so much (becoming a baseball legend at Fresno State and in Japan) and still be genuinely gracious and humble is remarkable.
The elementary school that will bear Hirayama’s name is scheduled to open in 2024 near Fowler and McKinley avenues in southeast Fresno. (Lest anyone forget that 40% of Clovis Unified is located in Fresno.)
“That’s the kind of example that I want to put on a school name,” board member Steven Fogg said during Wednesday’s meeting. “If anyone has left a legacy, it’s Fibber.”
The board’s decision was unanimous. Which is something that could never happen regarding the name change of a certain unincorporated city in the Fresno County foothills.
Conservative supervisors waste taxpayer money
I’m pretty certain the three Republicans serving on the Board of Supervisors consider themselves fiscal conservatives. Yet they have no trouble wasting taxpayer dollars suing the state, and potentially the federal government, on a frivolous lawsuit.
Why? Because removing “Squaw” from the town’s name, a word widely considered to be offensive to Native Americans, and replacing it with “Yokuts” after the Indigenous people who inhabited the region, is too “woke.” Both for their tastes and the tastes of residents who objected to the change.
Supervisor Nathan Magsig, who represents the area, is too politically savvy to say such a thing publicly. Instead, his contentions are focused on the process and his view that community members didn’t have a say.
I believe Magsig has a point. However, he appears guilty of the same thing. Proponents of the name change claim he refused for two years to meet with members of the local Indigenous community regarding the issue.
Supervisor Ernest “Buddy” Mendes isn’t savvy and doesn’t care to be. The same politician who wants to see western Fresno County fracked by big oil compared the name change to something that would occur under the Soviet regime or communist China.
Give me a break.
Yes, residents of Yokuts Valley (that’s the name; get used to it) should have been allowed more input. I’d prefer the government not swoop in and make unilateral decisions about local communities.
However, I have yet to hear anyone, politician or resident, make a case for why the name Squaw Valley is so meaningful to them. Why are they so attached to it? What would be lost if the town of 3,511 residents was called something else?
If someone can answer those questions, I’m all ears. But instead, all we heard was anger and transference. Rather than acknowledge past bigotry against Native Americans, they play the white grievance card that’s become all too familiar during the ongoing Republican-fueled culture war. It’s both ignorant and childish.
And now the GOP majority on the Board of Supervisors, those staunch fiscal conservatives, want to flush our tax dollars in their battle against “wokeness.” Here’s a proposal: Why not use that money to begin striking racist clauses from the county’s property tax records?
I wonder what Fibber Hirayama would’ve thought about that idea.
