Welcome to the Gulf of America, at the mouth of the America river, east of the America mountains, and west of the America peninsula.
If that statement sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. Yet this is just the direction President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” moves us.
“It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes,” the order reads.
To achieve this laudable end, Trump changed Mount Denali’s name back to Mount McKinley and the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the Gulf of America. While this order attempts to promote awareness of American heritage, its changes missed the mark. In fact, they did the opposite of what they were intended to do: They sterilized America’s rich heritage and obscured her history.
The Gulf of Mexico is a prime example. Spanish explorers named the gulf in 1550, and in the 475 years since, generations of French, Spanish, and English speakers have used that name. Changing it suffocates this history under the disturbingly austere title of “Gulf of America.”
In adopting these names, we risk detaching our history from the future. In obscuring the Spanish contributions to this nation’s discovery, the order creates an impression that America has always been here — that others didn’t come before us. It distorts our connection with the past, and thus corrupts our relationship with the future.
Trump’s executive order also fails when it comes to renaming Denali.
Alaskans, both Republican and Democrat, have always favored Denali’s name. The name Mount McKinley was coined by prospector William Dickey in 1896 and imposed on Alaskans in 1917. Since 1975, long before our modern obsession with inclusivity, Alaska had petitioned for a name change back to Denali, having already voted to change it at a local level. It was stopped by McKinley’s home state of Ohio.
If Trump’s goal is to highlight America’s heritage, then he should be proud to have America’s highest peak represent Alaskan culture.
It is admirable to honor the work of President William McKinley, but the man never visited Alaska or Mount Denali. His recognition should not come at the expense of Alaskan history and heritage, which is inextricably part of the American heritage Trump claims he wants to promote.
If Trump truly wants to promote America’s beautiful heritage he must reverse this executive order. However, he has only doubled down by taking measures to punish dissenting organizations, like banning the Associated Press from his press pool for using “the Gulf of Mexico.”
Trump’s stated intentions are good. We should be proud to be American, but this renaming is un-American. It also sets a dangerous precedent. Where do these name changes end? Do we change Mississippi’s name because it’s Native American? Do we change Florida’s name because it’s Spanish? Neither of those ethnicities are the majority land users anymore, so by Trump’s logic they should be named after America as well. Yet it would be a travesty to erase these names and the history that goes with them.
These renamings are also hypocritical. In an administration obsessed with cutting federal spending by any means necessary, superfluous expenditure to change accepted titles is perplexing. When the Department of Defense renamed 9 army bases in 2023 it cost $62.5 million. If that is what it takes to rename a few forts, renaming the gulf won’t help with the national debt.
The greatest tragedy of this name change is that it only worsens the culture war in America. Whether you call it the Gulf of America or the Gulf of Mexico will determine whose side you are on. As the Associated Press has discovered, impartiality is not an option.
This immature game of rightwing virtue-signaling needs to end. It is time for Trump to take the high ground and return the proper historic names to these places so that Americans can truly remember and appreciate their beautiful shared heritage.
James Joski is a freshman studying the liberal arts.
