A few weeks ago, I received an email from a reader in Florida who had read my byline in Smithsonian—an article about redfish, a culinary and sporting icon, that may be in dire straits.
"Quick question," she wrote:
Has the name of the Gulf of Mexico been changed by our Constitution, and, if not, why would you write in parenthesis, "(now Gulf of America)"?
I ignored the fact that the Constitution had little to do with the name change and in a quick reply explained the particulars: my first reference to the waterbody was in a historical section of the story, set back in the 1980s. Which means it would be confusing and incorrect to refer to it as anything but the Gulf of Mexico, its name at the time.
I also noted that such decisions lay beyond me, and with the publication itself, and that Smithsonian was following what seems to be a near-universal rule.
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Southlands
But I knew I'd face a similar choice.
When President Trump announced back in January that the name of the Gulf of Mexico would be changed so as to "restore American greatness"—and then attempted to bar the Associated Press from the Oval Office when that newswire refused to comply—I was beginning to conceive of the first print issue of a magazine that would certainly mention the Gulf. The whole kerfuffle had me worried; as I've said before, I want Southlands to attract any reader who loves the landscape and habitats of the South, and I figured there'd be people within that category who'd be annoyed no matter what name I chose to use.
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