I lived in Tucson, Arizona, for about six years, and one of the best things about that sometimes sweltering place was being surrounded by mountains. During my first week in town, new friends and I drove the steep, winding road to the top of Mount Lemmon, past cactus, then piñon and junipers, and finally into the pines. We threw down our packs in a hidden grassy patch just half a mile from a trail, a place most people hiked past. I snuggled into my sleeping bag that night, happy to be on the mountain, ignorant of its disturbing history.
Today, some place names — Prison Camp Road, Gordon Hirabayashi Campground — hint at the mountain’s history. But it’s easy to hike, drive or bike on Mount Lemmon and never realize that you’re traveling a highway dug by prisoners.
I did not learn about Mount Lemmon’s World War II history in school; I came across it while researching the region’s ecology for a writing project. Nor was I taught the peak’s Indigenous history, spanning thousands of years before European colonization. Now, I wonder: What other stories of place and displacement, of community and landscape, are hidden in archives, personal diaries, family stories? Which stories about the West are ignored, while other stories are told and retold?
You’ll also read about the history and future of the West’s water woes; queer Indigenous life in the Four Corners; the challenge of teaching writing students to wield their art as a force for change; and more. I hope these pages encourage you to seek out many more stories of the West, including your own.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The West is the stories we tell.
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