Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way? Arizona History and the Nation

In one of my favorite children's books, Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport, the young narrator describes his reluctant move to the West from New York City.¹ "Out West," he fears, "nobody plays baseball because they're too busy chasing buffaloes … there's cactus everywhere you look. … Out West, everybody grows up to be a sheriff. I want to be a subway driver." Worst of all, says his best friend Seymour, "Gila monsters meet you at the airport." Soon, though, our narrator's plane touches (desert) ground at a seemingly lizard-less western airport. There he meets his counterpart, a young western boy moving east: "He looks like Seymour, but I know his name is Tex." "Tex" fears the East, where he is sure "the streets are full of gangsters," "it snows and blows all the time," and "alligators live in the sewers."

En route to his new house (who knew they had taxis Out West?!), the narrator sees restaurants and baseball fields, kids on bikes—and, yes, a horse. It turns out life Out West looks familiar. On the last page, he reports that he will write "a long letter to Seymour. I'll tell him I'm sending it by pony express. Seymour will believe me. Back East they don't know much about us westerners."²

Like John Ford scenes of Monument Valley, the illustrations of the book, with their saguaro cacti and Gila monsters, are clearly set in Arizona, even if they stand for "Out West." The 1980 book is partly autobiographical. Author Marjorie Weinman Sharmat moved from Manhattan to Tucson in 1975 with her husband and teenaged sons. She even lent her own address to the young narrator's (165 E. 95th Street). The picture book pokes gentle fun at regional stereotypes, even as it acknowledges that a few have some truth (some kids do wear cowboy hats, there are horses, and in the East the subway is crowded). In the process, her book shows how Arizona is both like and unlike other parts of the country. Equally important, it recognizes that New York City is just as weird, if not weirder, than Arizona.³ One might ask, is Arizona a part of a whole, a leader or a follower, a fish out of water, or a pea in a pod? Do Gila monsters meet you at the airport?

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In spite of my light-hearted opening, serious concerns motivate what follows. As I write, academic and public debates rage about immigration and the border, conservative politics, Indigenous rights, and environmental issues. In this essay, I offer some thoughts about Arizona's relationship to the West and to the nation, and how these relationships have changed over time. I pay special attention to how and which academic historians, presses, and audiences have produced or paid attention to Arizona history. In what follows, I first consider Arizona's place in historical writing about the West and the nation (with the caveat that my own knowledge and coverage by other authors in this volume tilt my historiographical analysis toward southern Arizona). I compare Arizona to other parts of the West—especially New Mexico—to provide context for my larger generalizations, which come from my own position as what one might call an "insider-outsider," as an Arizona native and historian who visits often but has not lived permanently in the state in three decades. I briefly examine how Arizona's demographics and economic indicators have changed over time. This is the context for considering new controversies over immigration and border policy, especially the advent and aftermath of 2010's SB 1070, the state legislation (much of it since invalidated) intended to crack down on undocumented immigration.

In short, what do I think Arizona's relationship is to the rest of the country? What I suspect is not surprising: Arizona is becoming more like the nation, and the nation is becoming more like Arizona. These tendencies mean, in my view, that Arizona history deserves more attention than ever from historians and academic...