Why Arizona?
A Brief History of the 48th State
The southwestern area of North America has been home to people for at least 12,000 years. The ancient tribes Hohokam, Mogollon, Patayan, and Sinagua lived in the lands of present-day Arizona. The land was part of the state of Sonora, Mexico from 1822 until 1848: under the terms of the Mexican Cession, the United States took possession of the land above the Gila River after the Mexican War, which became part of the Territory of New Mexico. The Gadsden Treaty (1854) allowed the US to pay Mexico $10M for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. Arizona’s name is originated from the Spanish word Arizonac, which means "place of the young spring”.
In the 1850s, prospectors from the played-out California territory began exploring more of the American West. Thousands of “hellraisers and trailblazers” flocked to the Wild West of Arizona's mining towns, such as Tombstone. The principal occupations of the citizens of Arizona during Civil War days were fighting, mining and gambling.
President Lincoln created Arizona in 1863 by carving out of the New Mexico Territory during the Civil War. The Treaty at Fort Sumter (1868) established an official Navajo reservation, allowing the Navajo to return after four years of internment to a small portion of their ancestral homeland. Few new Americans found reason to settle in Arizona until the late 1870s, when silver and copper deposits brought miners, which expanded with the arrival of railroads in the 1880s. Mining continued to be a strong contributor to Arizona’s economy through the 1950s.
In 1912, the Grand Canyon State and its 217K residents were the last of the 48 contiguous states to join the union. As of January 2024, Arizona has a population of 7.46 million. The population grew 1.3% between 2021 and 2022 — that's the eighth-fastest rate of growth in the country - and expected to cross the 8 million threshold by 2028.
Arizona’s Key Challenges
Since 2010, more people have moved to Phoenix’s Maricopa County than any other U.S. county.
Nearly 30% of Arizonans are considered working poor, living on wages that barely cover housing and other basic necessities. 20% of Native American households make less than $5,000 annually.
Arizona's public schools are ranked 49th out of 51. Only the schools of Alaska and New Mexico rank lower. As of 2023, Arizona is tied for last place in highest dropout rate with Alaska, New Mexico and District of Columbia. It ranks 49th in teacher-to-pupil ratio; and ranks 48th in spending for public schools.
Arizona was the third-fastest-warming state in the US between 1970 and 2018. A 2023 study suggested the Phoenix region will be among the country's least-habitable by 2050, with half the year spent at temperatures above 95F.
The Colorado River system, which supplies 36% of Arizona's total water use, has experienced reduced flows, impacting the state's overall water supply. Prolonged drought conditions, coupled with increased demand from growing populations, agricultural activities, and climate change impacts, have intensified the water scarcity.
Before World War II, the focus of Arizona's economy was primary production: mining, lumbering, cattle raising, and crop growing. This has changed dramatically: by Q2-2022, Real Estate ($67.3B), Manufacturing ($39.2B), and Healthcare and Social Assistance (Community Food & Housing, Emergency & Relief, Vocational Rehabilitation, Child Day Care) contributed the most to Arizona's GDP, representing a combined 36.7% of state GDP.
Underserved Indigenous Communities
Indigenous people are an important part of Arizona’s past, present and future. Respect for the sovereignty of Native nations is key: their leaders and communities know what is best for their people.
Arizona is home to the third largest indigenous population among all the states. Out of the entire U.S. population of 2.9M Native Americans, roughly 287K (10%) live in Arizona.
The Navajo Nation and the Tohono O'odham Nation are the two largest reservations in the U.S. 25% of Arizona is tribal land, dedicated to 22 federally recognized indigenous tribes but to which the U.S. federal government owns the title to the land. Reservations are usually exempt from state laws, including taxes, and are often self-governing, with a tribal council as the leading authority group.
Almost a third of the Navajo Nation’s 170K residents do not have access to clean, reliable drinking water. The Navajo Nation has for years been locked in contentious negotiations with Arizona over water. With the tribe's claims not yet settled, the water sources it can access are limited. Thousands who live without running water must drive for miles to refill barrels and jugs to haul water home for drinking, cooking, bathing and cleaning. Others rely on unregulated wells. Navajo hospitals recently tapped into an aquifer, but the water was too salty to use.
About 1 in 4 Native Americans experience food insecurity, compared to 1 in 9 Americans overall. 28 U.S. counties are majority Native American, 18 of which are considered high food insecurity counties, stemming partially from above average unemployment and poverty amongst Tribal communities. Apache County, home to the Navajo Nation and the Zuni and Fort Apache tribes, has a 22% food insecurity rate, the highest out of any majority Native American county in the United States. Another aspect of food insecurity among Native Americans in tribal lands comes from lack of access to full-service grocery stores. Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the US, spans 27K square miles (17.545M acres) across Arizona, Utah and New Mexico - an area roughly comparable to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined - and has only 13 grocery stores.
Native American students have the lowest high school graduation rate of any ethnic subgroup in the U.S. 80% of Native American fourth graders read at or below what a national comparison considers “basic” level.
Multilingual Communities
73% of Arizonans speak English.
Spanish is spoken in 20% of Arizona homes (vs 13% in all of U.S. homes), with 9% of Arizonans speaking only Spanish (vs California’s 13%). Another 7% speak only languages other than English and Spanish at home, including Navajo, German, Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
Arizona has the third highest number of Native Americans of any state, and the largest number of Native American language speakers in the United States. There are twelve Native American languages spoken in Arizona: Navajo, Western Apache, Yavapai, Havasupai-Hualapai, Quechan, Mojave, Maricopa, Cocopah, Colorado River Numic, Hopi, Yaqui and O'odham. 170K people speak Navajo in Arizona and New Mexico; 15K people speak Yaqui.
The number of Native language speakers has been in decline for decades: out of 245 indigenous languages in the US, 65 are already extinct and 75 are near extinction, with only a few elder speakers left.