On March 22, 2018, Napa Valley Unified School District changed the mascot from the Indians to the Grizzlies. The school board came to this decision to stop cultural appropriation. When asked if a mascot change will happen at Ripon High School, Principal Keith Rangel dismissed the idea.

“We’re Indians, we’ve been Indians for a long time. With a lot of deep history with Chief Estanislao named after Stanislaus county,” said Rangel.

Chief Estanislao was the leader of the Lakisamni tribe who led revolts against the Mexican government during the early years of Californian history. In his honor, the Stanislaus River, Stanislaus County and Stanislaus City, now Ripon, were named for him after his death.

Even though the school’s mascot is the Indians, the logo is a dreamcatcher.

“We went with the dreamcatcher about close to 15 years ago, we think it looks sharp and with the Indian headdress, very hard to get the same exact Indian that matches our Indian with chief Estanislao and so out of respect we want to make sure it matches. We want to do that with any other mascot that doesn’t match correctly,” Rangel said.

“It sounds like from the community and from students they continue to use the dreamcatcher on uniforms and as you see in our gym, throughout our memorabilia, our clothing, our hats, so we like the looks of it.”  Which can be shown from a Twitter poll with 69 members who voted 81% for keeping the mascot, and the other 11% thought it is time for change.

Last year, the Manteca Bulletin posted an editorial by Carly Kohler writing that the mascot was culture appropriation.  Coming from Native American descent, Kohler was very offended from the “tall wooden statue of a stereotypical Indian in a headdress” in the front office. Without knowing, the “tall wooden statue” was a statue of Chief Estanislao.

“She never talked to anybody so she didn’t have all the information. You know it’d be nice to talk to people, understand how long we’ve been the Indians, why we’re the Indians, what we do to support and respect the culture.” says Rangel on the topic of the editorial.

Rangel then comments that he is always open for people to ask questions and have a good dialogue and a good discussion. He then closes with the statement, “There’s a right way, and wrong way to do things. We just have to be careful.”