Not a single
Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count).
The North, understandably, was looking forward to its own turn, after the exit of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a
Southwesterner, who was in the saddle for two full terms of four years.
Whether written by an author on the Atlantic Coast, in New England or the tidewater South, or a "
Southwesterner," its biases were essentially conservative and restrained.
Indeed, Gregory Stephens wrote of relocating to North Carolina from Texas: "As a
southwesterner, when I first relocated to North Carolina, I was impressed by the fact that my colleagues thought of the border as being the Mason-Dixon line--that would be the North as the Other of southern opposi tional identity." (2)
He often mentioned he felt like a New Englander in the Southwest and a
Southwesterner in New England.
Amid the rapid change in the status of black writers and their treatment of the material during World War II and the post-War era, two major authors reflect controlled use of the components of style: James Baldwin, an Easterner born in New York City, and Ralph Ellison, a
Southwesterner born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Bulow, Navajo Taboos (Gallup:
Southwesterner Books, 1982): 52-53.
Southwesterner Naomi Shihab Nye weaves a bright tapestry of her Middle Eastern heritage, life in Texas, and interior travels.
<IR> EDWARD ABBEY </IR> , The Brave Cowboy (1956); Jack Schaefer, Monte Walsh (1963); John Culp, The Bright Feathers (1965); and <IR> LARRY MCMURTRY </IR> , Lonesome Dove (1985) carry the cowboy to a level far above the norms established by <IR> ZANE GREY </IR> and <IR> LOUIS L'AMOUR </IR> for the archetypal
Southwesterner. <IR> JOHN NICHOLS' </IR> trilogy--The Milagro Beanfield War (1974), The Magic Journey (1978), and The Nirvana Blues (1981)--treats the Hispanic experience in the context of economic development in New Mexico.
Said one, a businessman in downtown Windhoek, when asked how he felt about the new developments, "I was born a
Southwesterner and I shall die a
Southwesterner; I am definitely not a Namibian."
A day or two earlier, I had received an urgent note from a small-town
Southwesterner whose name I did not recognize.
Vice President George Bush regards him as a "friendly, strong"
Southwesterner with a serious commitment to physical fitness.