On one hot evening in Phoenix, my adopted family got together for my belated birthday party. Everyone in the house was doing some kind of chore: Piper prepared food for the tacos, Renee prepared rice and beans, and Carlos ran to the local store to get wine. The chores seemed endless. Eric, a longtime activist in the group Respeto!, was setting the table for dinner, while Brian, a mutual friend of the family and of mine, organized chairs. I was a few feet away arranging some party decorations. There was light chatter in the room, mostly about party preparations. As usual, the discussion turned to immigrants, their rights, and unsurprisingly, the border. Eric listed the events of his day, which centered on activism. Suddenly he turned to Brian and said, “You know, there’s a war going on here.” Brian nodded furiously in agreement. I was not sure to which war he was referring-was it the war on immigration that people are accustomed to hearing about? The ongoing antagonisms between the two main political parties, which many interpret as warlike? Or something else? At first, I shrugged it off, thinking it was another one of the peculiarities of life in

Phoenix. Yet the ease with which friends and acquaintances used phrases such as war zone intrigued me. During my time in Phoenix, few days passed where someone in my immediate circle did not invoke the imagery of war.