To advance further toward the goal of eliminating racism, national movements have led to the removal of vestigial symbols that tell a false historical narrative of the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era. What do you do when your state’s name is racist?
The words "Utah" and "Ute" are mispronounced versions of an earlier Arizonian Jemez Native American term for the Ute nation, meaning "people who live in stick houses." The Jemez, like the other Arizonan Pueblo tribes, lived in multistory apartment structures made of cut sandstone and adobe. From their name for the Utes, apparently they looked down on their northern neighbors.
That was shortened in 1776 by the Dominguez–Escalante expedition to “Yuta.” “Yuta” was later further garbled by Utah’s Euro American conquerors like Brigham Young to “Utah.” In this way, “Utah” and “Ute” are racist terms.
The Ute Nation licenses the “Ute” name to the University of Utah, the “Utah Utes,” the “Lady Utes” and other organizations perhaps because privately among themselves they do not use the name assigned by their Anglo-conquerors. In their native language, the Utes have a true tribal name of “Nuuchu.”
An alternative state name like “Deseret” is an equally offensive affront to the state’s non-Mormon population, who were largely responsible for building the wealth of this state after the arrival of the transcontinental railroad. In a culturally and historically insensitive manner, Utah’s conservative Legislature, which is dominated by members of the Latter-day Saint faith, continues to govern Utah as a weak religious apartheid. The Legislature ignores its non-Mormon voters principally through gerrymandering and by preempting non-Mormons’ local will expressed in ordinances on social and economic issues.
It is time to return Utah's state name to its non-racist, pre-Euro American designation: Nuuchu.
Kurt A. Fisher, Salt Lake City
