Within the discussion of the dynamics of Spanish language maintenance and shift to English in the southwestern U.S., this article takes a magnifying glass to one Southwest state in particular, Arizona, and the societal pressures that impact language maintenance and shift. Rather than focus on speakers’ language use across domains or attitudes about Spanish and English, this article examines the wider sociopolitical context of language use through the lens of ethnolinguistic vitality and subjective ethnolinguistic vitality, and from the perspective of the competing forces of language panic and language pride.