White Fog in Yokuts Valley

I grew up on the coast of Maine where fog rolled in so thick you couldn’t see the road ahead when you wanted to get somewhere. You had to inch forward at a few miles an hour, along the painted white line trying not to drive off the road. Our country is in a kind of fog regarding the existence of racism.

I have to include myself in this group of people in a white fog because I am half white and the daughter of an army colonel who did not acknowledge the existence of racism. He drew unapologetic lines in his mind, between superior people and inferior people and treated everyone accordingly. He never gave himself the chance to know any other cultures of color beyond the Japanese culture, which he adored because of their “superior” ways, so he remained in a comfortable fog regarding the other cultures of color.

I am just coming to terms in my 68th year with the racism I experienced as a little girl growing up in a sea of whiteness. I struggled deeply to find a sense of belonging among classmates who barely spoke to me during my elementary years because I was Japanese and because I looked different. I understand the feelings that accompany racism. The feelings are real. They stay with you throughout your life.

So now, as we approach 2025, the year that Yokuts Valley will have completed its transition into the new name, I understand the feelings of Native women who have to drive the 180 Kings Canyon Highway every day through the racist gauntlet of S-word names. I do admit my experience of racism does not include the violence inflicted on Native women throughout the history of our country.

Violence takes racism to deeper levels of trauma. This kind of trauma resides in people of color in ways that I do not understand because I have not experienced violent trauma. If you are a white person reading this, it is possible you don’t understand the feelings of racial trauma either. It’s possible you are in a white fog.

Anyone who bothers to learn the history of Native people in our country (and it’s not easy because our school textbooks didn’t tell the actual history of genocide) will know that Native people have suffered deeply at the hands of white people for more than 500 years.

The attempts at erasing this history through the suppression of critical race theory do not erase the truth of what happened. White people who want to ignore the repercussions of systemic cruelty by denying our actual history are contributing to a massive white fog. We have collectively driven off the road through this thick fog of suppression only to find ourselves kneeling on the necks of people like George Floyd and deepening the racial divide in our country.

When we first moved to the foothills, during the pandemic, we were not aware that the term squaw was derogatory. Our son, who had learned about Native culture with the water protectors at Standing Rock, in South Dakota, told us the name was an insult to Native women. Upon learning this, I knew I didn’t want to live in a town with a racist name, so we eventually found a community of people who were aware of the racist meaning of the word and were working to change it.

The Yokuts people, along with all Native people in our country, suffered a violent mass extermination at the hands of white settlers who gained land when gold was discovered in California. By the turn of the 20th century, 99% of all Yokuts men, women and children had been killed by white settlers at the encouragement of the California government, who paid them for each Native scalp they acquired.

Now, more than a hundred years later, the few descendants of the Yokuts people are asking if we could change a town name that does emotional violence to Native women. This small gesture of reconciliation is getting driven off the road in another blinding white fog that makes it impossible for white people to attend to their own sense of right and wrong.

The new Yokuts Valley sign on Highway 180 has been vandalized three times. By now, everyone has had access to the facts about the derogatory word. It is no longer a secret. The S-word does emotional violence to Native women.

How difficult is this to comprehend? It is, apparently, difficult to understand when you are living in a white fog. As I have examined my own whiteness and my own accompanying white fog, I realize that we white people are for the most part racist by default because we have not experienced the feelings that accompany racism.

In my own attempt to heal from the racism I experienced as a child, I unconsciously protected myself by identifying as a white person. My education about racism inflicted on other cultures came from movies like Remember the Titans, starring Denzel Washington, or children’s books about famous Black Americans. My white circle of friends raising their white children did not read books by Malcolm X or actual histories of Indigenous peoples.

We live in a world that shelters us from an understanding of racism. So when Indigenous people like Roman Rain Tree ask us to participate in an effort to honor Native women by changing the name of S— Valley to Yokuts Valley, we respond from a white fog. We can’t see through the fog to the pain we have inflicted on Native people.

We remain in our safe cocoons and pretend that the S-word is harmless and endearing. It’s time to move out of the fog into the clear light of day and embrace the beautiful new name of Yokuts Valley.

*****

Junie Yamazaki is a resident of Yokuts Valley who is of Japanese descent. She enjoys activism and cooking and lovely times with friends in Yokuts Valley.