Ohio high school sports teams with Native American names/mascots

For Topic, photographer Daniella Zalcman went to Ohio to document high school sports teams using names and mascots that refer to Native Americans.

Outside of professional sports, words and names referring to indigenous Americans abound: there are high-school teams and squads called the Redskins, Redmen, Big Reds, Braves, Warriors, Chieftains, Indians, Savages, Squaws, Apaches, Mohawks, and Seminoles. Many of them are in the state of Ohio, which, some reports say, has over 60 high-school mascots with names considered to be slurs. (It’s worth considering the cost of “tradition”: a 2014 report by the Center for American Progress found links between these team names and the lowered self-esteem-and increased suicide rates-of young Native Americans.)

• Daniella Zalcman
• language
• Native Americans
• photography
• sports