Sacramento County renames residential street to remove Native American slur
A street in La Riviera, an unincorporated region near Rancho Cordova, will rename a street which includes a Native American slur after the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors approved a new name Tuesday afternoon.
The street is now called River Valley Way, replacing the original “Squaw Valley Way.”
The vote, led by Supervisor Rosario Rodriguez, passed unanimously. River Valley Way includes 14 homes and is nearby Tuolumne Drive, Feather River Way and Payette Drive. All the surrounding streets are named after California rivers, according to the county’s resolution.
Lupe Rodriguez, who oversees maintenance and operations for the county’s Department of Transportation, said neighborhood residents had positive feedback to the new name.
Rodriguez added that the department spoke with local tribes and received approval from the California Advisory Committee to move forward with the name River Valley Way. Rodriguez said the department is spreading awareness of the street change name.
“Staff noticed the meeting by placing advisory signs out in the community on the street to notice the meeting for the highways, for the streets,” Rodriguez said.
Residents with the old street name on their forms of identification can change their address at a local Driver Motor Vehicle office. This can be done in-person, online with a MyDMV account and through a mail-in inquiry, according to the state of California’s official website.
This change is in compliance with Assembly Bill 2022, authored by Assemblymember James Ramos, D-San Bernardino. Ramos, who is Serrano and Cahuilla, wrote that the law creates a process to rename all locations with the slur in California. The term was created, and is used to dehumanize and demean Native women in the United States and Canada, according to previous Bee reporting.
“The sad reality is that this term has been used for generations and normalized, even though it is a misogynistic and racist term rooted in the oppression and belittling of Indigenous women,” wrote former Assemblymember Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens, who co-authored the bill in 2022.
Since 2022, the slur has been legally declared a ethnic slur and if streets are not redesignated, a county is in violation of the law, as determined by California Advisory Committee of Geographic Name, the resolution stated.
La Riviera isn’t the first area in the region to rename a street under AB 2022. In 2024, the city of West Sacramento renamed two roads featuring the same slur to “Tebti Road” and “Tebti Court.” In consultation with Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, “Tebti” was chosen and is originally a Patwin word which translates to the streams that flow together, according to past Bee reporting, in reference to the Sacramento and American rivers.
This story was originally published May 14, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
