When a Reno bakery owner declined to talk to Wishelle Banks about changing the name of their “squaw bread”—a moniker widely recognized as a slur against Indigenous women—Banks went to the store on Nov. 20 to stand in the rain with a protest sign.
When Banks arrived at the House of Bread at 1185 California Ave., however, a bakery employee met her to say the name had been changed to “prairie bread” and that the matter was resolved. The Reno franchise is now in line with four other House of Bread franchise locations in California and Alaska, which previously had changed the offending name to prairie bread.
“It was the best possible outcome,” said Banks, a screenwriter and retired journalist from Reno, who is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. (She is a former RN&R contributor.) She said the word “squaw” is “like calling a woman the c-word. It’s a cultural issue and a community issue.”…