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éti.......Leaver: Cultural.....and PûMcalJLQidê. IARGO TaMEZ Thatfence is a political border— not a cultural one. —José Emiliano Garcia Iunload her laundry, and stack it neatly to the side, where she'll pick it up to hang on the line. It is late August, and the sky contains scarce moisture in its evaporating horsetail clouds. Flirtatiously, the monsoon arrives on cool breezes that come from the mountain updrafts and the Sea of Cortez. They lure me to the north side of the trailer. I aim to get chores over with by mid-morning, to be inside and do absolutely nothing but sit on a chair that won't stick to my thighs and leave behind two shining ovals on the wooden seat. The twins of those wet flat eyes on the backs of my thighs, the soft, nearly invisible hair there doing what evolution meant for it to do—provide a way to cool my limbs, the silken hairs providing an evaporative cooling apparatus that triggers upon contact with air and instantly sets off a mini ventilating scheme in each pore. One of the beautiful little miracles of the architecture called the human body. I'll take off my shirt when everyone else is outside working in the gardens thirsty for water, though they get a deep soak every other day and thrive under thick mulch and complimentary legumes and plentiful canopy of mesquites. We encourage the volunteer mesquites wherever we can, a way to reclaim the once healthy and herbaceous northern Sonoran ecosystem on a three-acre demonstration farm, yet the salinity and nitrates from years of chemicals, contributed by previous farmers from the post-war era through the present, challenge our most skilled organic and biodynamic methods to reclaim the soil—and the soul—of this land. I put my gloves down on the floor next to my chair; my neck and head rest on the bony back of the thriftstore Shaker replica, with a few more months left in its rickety frame. Not a plush recliner of my fantasies, but it will do as I close my eyes by the nearest swamp cooler 53 Ecotone: reimagining place vent, languishing in its promise of mental transport to a cooler clime, say . . . Glacier National Park, or Anchorage . . . Tm not picky. Just one or two breath-filled moments before the kids burst through the door wanting lunch. Today is my turn to wash laundry. I have a cooperative arrangement with the Mexican migrant workers who rent living space from me in a traditional O'odham earth and frame house, called a "sandwich" house that they helped my family build this past spring. A humble and ingenious living shelter utilizing the raw materials of the desert—abundant clay and sand-filled soil, saguaro ribs or old two-by-fours as substitutes , dried ocotillo branches, water, shovels, strong arms and willing backs—the sandwich house of the O'odham people reveals their long and intimate relationship with the Sonoran desert ecosystem and the oral tradition emergent from this symbiotic affiliation which informs their 'himdak/ or 'way of life,' a life inherently in tune with cycles of the desert, and one engaged in a profound struggle against inclusion on the endangered list. I fondly recall that day spent raising walls and eating a barbecued pig the men slaughtered. While they carefully peeled the skin off the animal, and sliced it into small wedges for deep frying chicharrones, a delicacy they crave, known as pork rinds to non-Indian and nonSpanish speaking cultures. I helped butcher the pig to freezable parts, passed around cheap, cold beer from the local farmers' convenience store (the only store within fourteen square miles), and made pico de gallo for the pork tacos we'd be savoring way past the sunset of a brewing monsoon. The migrants and I use the washing machine on alternate days. We use a second-hand machine, bought at another thriftstore in Casa Grande which is owned by a Mexican-American family who repair a variety of household machines ready for resale to a largely labor and blue-collar community in a mostly rural county. Most folks I've encountered during the nine...

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