Association hosts a panel entitled, does the west matter . About thears talk west geographically, politically and socially, and discuss the broader role of regions when discussing the past and president of the United States. This was part of the organizations 2019 annual meeting. Afternoon. Im the president of the wha. Tois my great pleasure welcome you to the president ial plenary session. Does the west matter . The future of regionalism in American History. There are 150 sessions taking place at the wha, but the president ial plenary brings us all together in one place. Introducing this panel, i want to take advantage of our and invitepresence, the immediate past president of the wha, from Arizona State university, to open the session with a native lands acknowledgment, a statement that feels crucial to who we are as a Historical Organization that cares deeply about the past, and is particular about the past of this part of the world. And in particular about the past of this part of the world. I would like you to repeat after me. Ee see mah pee. Language,ditional what you just said is very good. I said hello, how are you . And you said, good. [laughter] i want to welcome you. Im an American Indian, American Indian scholar, and we are in the land of the northern paiute. Since historic times we are also in the land of the southern paiute, mojave, washoe. Western shoshone end all these other people. So being here, there is not always an indian president an indian presence, but this really establishes the American Indian presence. And it is for us as historians not are forget not to forget the native people where they are, that native people are part of the past, part of the president certainly part of the future. [applause] thank you, john. This years plenary addresses a simple question, and perhaps an odd question for the western History Association to even think about. Does the west even matter anymore is a defined field of historical study . Andy indeed, does and indeed, does regional matter in American History . As people are increasingly linked by transportation, the internet, shared forms of popular culture, does regionalism have the salience it did say my in the 19th century, when despite shared political cultures, different regions of the country had distinct histories revolving around slavery, colonialism, the displacement of naval the displacement of native peoples. Or, why was 19th century history so different . We have an Exceptional Panel of scholars today, not all of whom focus on the american west, but all of whom wrestle with questions of regions and geography in their work. To introduce them and to moderate this conversation, i want to turn the session over to my colleague and friend William Cronan from the university of wisconsin madison. Bail, welcome back to the wha. Bill got. Ill, welcome back to the wha names of can see the our panelists. Im not going to give me their biographies. They all have powerful reasons for being a rn things to say about this particular question. I will note the interesting paradox about the session title. The title in the subtitle are not quite synonymous in their meeting, as marty said the word even would suggest. Does the west matter is a different question then, does region matter . Be what regions ought to addressed and thought about and thinking about the past of another regional entity, the United States, north america, what are the boundaries of the work that counts as the focus of the field called western history . What we have at this table are people whose work centrally focuses on the west, people whose work is he in hybrid space with the west, people whose work is in regions that are often not considered west in the way that this organization now defines west. I will introduce the panelists without giving backgrounds. They will speak in the order you see on the screen. Every so often, one of the speakers will have images or maps that i am going to manage. They will each speak for five minutes to eight minutes. I will be the timekeeper. I will then ask if they want to respond to each other in any way. I may ask one or two or three questions based on what i heard them say, and then we throw this open to questions on comets questions and comments from all of you. As you listen, please think about things you would like to be brought to this conversation i mightst, region, and add the category place. One thing i cherish about everybody on this panels work and most people in this room is is place basedness, which something we all share here, however we think about the category region. On your right, we have ed ayers from university of richmond, tie a miles from harvard, Susan Lee Johnson from university of nevada las vegas, George Sanchez from university of southern california, and lisa brooks ana si from amherst college. Susan, start us off. Susan thank you, bill. Holding in my hand a deck of cards. Can you hear me . Hand, stayg in my se, a deck [laughter] that tells the history of the american west. I got they cards a quarter attury ago as a party favor a Retirement Party for a beloved mentor of many of us here today. At the dinner a bunch of people were Milling Around the table where the cars were being handed out. Among us was one person who, after writing a dissertation, went on to a career in film and on the stage. One some of us wished out loud we could have more than one deck of cards, he quipped, it is the west, just take it. [laughter] myriad, casual interactions and observations that remind be how crucial it is to keep studying the history of places that have been called the west, and processes we have termed variously and contentious contentious lee frontier and conquest, colonialism and imperialism. Just take it is not equipped of course, it is a critique born of academic inquiry and historical trauma. It is also a form of indigenous whom are indigenous humor, not always allegedly funny outside Indian Country, although western historians get the grim joke. Nonwestern historians get it as well, because taking was a continental, hemispheric and global process for which the west stands as an entity. I just learned how to pronounce that word. How a part came to stand for the whole has its own history. It is as much these casual interactions and observations as it a years of writing and teaching american western history that drive home to me the continued relevance of not just placebased history of which i am a fan regardless of also of histories that fit, however uneasily, under a western banner. The uneasy fit is often the westsbecause the discontent provoked productive conversations about connective histories, the longing for citizenship, about selfdetermination and sovereignty. Westsspeak of the discontent, i meet for example i mean for example borderlands history that comprise mexico and canada, Pacific Ocean and islandbased histories at the histories of appalachia or the great lakes, and alaska too. But the wests discontent are just places outside the customary boundaries we draw around the socalled american west, the Pacific Ocean, southern and Northern Borders of the continental u. S. And either the Mississippi River or the line that is roughly the 90th meridian. Are alsos discontents humans for whom the idea of the west represents less promise and more violence, dispossession, trentmination, disfriend dass disenfranchisement, expulsion and incarceration including those we have come to call asian americans, latin americans, latinx people. What i talk about the wests discontents im reminded of a conversation with a historian in the 1990s. In his graduate students in the chicano history worried about their relationship to new work of western history, a field toward which they felt ambivalent at best. When his students asked howd navigate those waters, how to stay true to their intellectual commitments while claiming space in the profession, dave told them, ride the wave, ride the wave, baby. He wanted his students to get he alsoe also you knew that malibu and the rest of the west would never be the same. Dave was right. A generation of scholars studying the wests discontents meeting intoe wja a site where you will reliably hear about Indigenous People and places, and prophecies in north american places we now consider midwestern or southern. You might share a comparative piece that looks at colonialism and more than one world region, in north america and australia, perhaps, a civic or caribbean islands, though i can see the word caribbean appears only once whiles years program, pacific appears 26 times. Racialht here talk on dimensions of citysuburb relationships in chicago and denver in washington dc. That last example is Wishful Thinking on my part. A paperately wanted like this as i finished the book that traces the lives of 20thcentury white women, amateur historians and westerners, who wrote about kit navigated those urban relationships even as they imagined the hinterland passed that differed from the western history white men, including those in the wha, were producing. Of a comparative urban study, i did the work on denver and washington dc and and chicago myself. I slogged through Fairfax County looking for sources. Cities,ories of these their neighborhoods and suburbs, are distinct, but also comparable unconnected, not least by the 300 letters with three different postmarks that the two white women exchanged while they confronted a new racial future and constructed a novel western past. Remains a part that fords for a whole extractive colonialism and the exercise of power. The west in that sense is a vector of violence routinely invoked to justify all manner of misrule in the present. I incurred this when i move to las vegas and asked why individual units in my condominium could access individual trash and recycling services and others had no access to recycling. The answer had to do with garb answer had to do with where garbage trucks could and couldnt maneuver but this did dumpstersn why trash could not be placed alongside the dumpsters for us. A heated conversation followed. Hoa boardrated officials hit on the idea of appealing to me as a midwestern transplant. She thought i would shut up when she declared, this is the wild west. [laughter] she was sadly mistaken. A scale of one to 10, where one is the least egregious and location of the west to justify misrule and 10 is the most two. Ious, this was a but knowing how such invocations, both implicit and explicit, can escalate to excuse for arse, from calls border wall, to unconstrained land development, two white supremacist groups, to homophobic entrance phobic murders, i thought it nonetheless. I have not won the battle yet. Battlees though, the itself is a bright ball of joy. I am thinking of last springs music marvel, which let the air out of the west and blew it back up into a shape shifted thing defiantly black, country and queer. If you miss the old town rose phenomenon, just pretend what you pretend you know am talking about, grab your phone, get out of the room, do a quick Google Search and grab your earbuds. What you will see and hear if you click on the music video is the end product of a process that started when a minor lternet personality, li bought a dutch beat from a producer and it powers a song about a guy that is going to take the old town road and is going to rise until he cant know more. [laughter] the song went viral and debuted on three billboard charts, including the hot country songs list. Beyonces daddys lesson was excised from the genre in 2016, hot country quickly dropped old town road as insufficiently country, that is, to black. Asked, nell s x had ass, lil na top 100 billboard song that was on the list for 19 weeks. Cant nobody tell him nothing. [laughter] so write a horse. Right away. Make the west work for you. Right until you cant know more. [applause] rid until you cant no more. [applause] george it is delight a delight to be invited. My perspective on regionalism is , myed by my own location birthplace in los angeles, california, a city that is often written out of the west altogether, by individuals who have fled the city for other locations they believe embody more of the true west, and at times by western historians themselves. After sitting in traffic on a los angeles freeway for hours, many a former angelino has left, vowing never to return to this monster of a city, yearning for open space, environmental speeds and a front environmental space na frontier. And mentor patty limericks new center of the colorado, had, literally removed metropolitan los angeles from its configuration of the western region. Concept of regionalism in the u. S. Were shaped primarily by the most Significant National events of the 19th century, the civil war and the angle contest on the anglo conquest of the west, regionalism may seem an ancient way to acknowledge knowledge of the first 30 of the first 30 the 20th century. Third of the 21st century. Maced em akron it it may seem anachronistic, but regionalism plays an Important Role in the way people bring meaning to their lives, even if those regions have changed. Take los requires we angeles and las vegas seriously as Regional Centers of meaning, if we are to embrace realities of regionalism for the 21st century. These cities cannot be examples of what the west has negatively become, or what nearby locations do not want to become to remain in the physical west. So to move our conversation forward, i want to offer other critical interpretations of thatnalism for our era, may be as important as north, south, east and west that served us so long as historical writers. Some are wellestablished and others may be in formation, but each will push us to acknowledge what we mean by regionalism and identity. I will take responsibility for each of these new formations. They were shaped by ongoing conversations with my students at usc. Relatively noncontroversial to at least speak of a coastal culture in the u. S. That is positioned next to that part of the u. S. That is between the coasts, what is derisively termed as flyover regions or what trump has referred to as the real america. While california, seattle and hawaii seem to connect with the bostonnew yorkwashington corridor, the boundaries of the coast are harder to define. Where do we put las vegas . Nevada . Increasingly politically and affect as connected to or the more volatile california . There is data that would support the coast as a region. The largest number of homeless in this country reside in california, new york, washington, dc and hawaii, and these regions are known as diverse sites of multiculturalism. Specifically to los angeles, i am intrigued by relationships of bilingualism, culture and the culture from miami to los angeles including the new south, texas, mexico and arizona. A wide swath of sun belt states have not only tied their economies together since world furtherbut have been joined by an expanded border culture which stretches south to latin america and the caribbean for people and commerce. Population, where now exist more mexicans and puerto ricans, can get tied to this region by the sunbelt and the rust belt that are critically shaping identity formations this century. We can see the southern half of the u. S. Has as many if not more connections to Population Centers in mexico, central america, and the caribbean, as they do to other sites in the u. S. One can talk of a walking inture a mexican culture los angeles or North Carolina, for example. Same as whenthe people discuss the culture of iowa today to define southern california. And there is a halfbaked notion of a wall of the southern border. The chinese have had an enormous cultural effect on many parts of the u. S. And latin america, but it is harder to see that limited to a regional phenomenon. But i note the recent u. S. Immigration policy is rapidly transforming the border region refugees from africa, asia, and the middle east gathering Mexican Border cities and frustrated attempts to enter the United States. What happensd by to our notions of region when we take seriously the migration of indigenous populations from latin america to locations in the United States. Indeed the diversity of Indigenous People and the needsg of the term itself to be reexamined with populations across the u. S. That identify as indigenous. Populations of people from latin america have populated the American South and rural areas of california and washington and cities across the country. The meaninghaping of indigenous and providing a more hemispheric notion of land and heritage that those of us that remain u. S. Centered. Finally and maybe controversially, we need to think of a belt of White Supremacy in this country. It is often shaped by local policies intending to keep white europeans a majority culture. I will give you my interpretation, you may have your own. Moving west to east, we include arizona and utah, idaho, montana, maybe parts of oregon. The White Supremacy belt with then make its way east to the Mountain West and midwest before settling in parts of texas and the old south. White supremacists can be felt in every state and region of this country, but it is important to understand where this movement has strength, whether measured by population, antiimmigrant laws, white supremacist groups or gun sales. Clearly, the west and south are the only regions of meeting of u. S. History that cannot be sustained, but regionalism continues to help us identify patterns of culture, population and meaning that are useful to understanding the diversity of the u. S. Experience. I hope we can identify other regions in our discussions that can be as useful as the ones i have been