WEBVTT

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"Teléfono Roto"

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They say her cry is
heard near water.

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My Nana says she heard
the story first as a child

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And then years later
on the line at Motorola

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From a woman raised near Bisbee.

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Chismes y dichos--

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Hearsay, as they inspected
the endless circuitry

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through microscopes.

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Fordism's orders,
overseers, and foremen

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Told her they would make phones
that fit inside a pocket.

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"¡Yo no lo creía!"

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she said.

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If we remove their cases, the
verbs "creer" and "to create"

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share similar wiring.

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Some of those components
were washed, degreased,

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with toxic solvents,
trichloroethylene,

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That Motorola for years
spilled and flushed carelessly.

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A plume of poisoned groundwater

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Stretches beneath Phoenix from
the East Valley to the West,

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Past downtown, where my
father ran his store,

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a tiendita called Fay's,

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But that many knew
as los chinos.

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After a nine-year
fight with cancer,

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My father passed away in 2018.

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In 1989, Motorola moved
the production line

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my Nana worked on to Mexico,

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Once the company was served
with fines for what's

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now a superfund site.

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We might trace this
production line from Phoenix

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to Guadalajara to Guangzhou,

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Where my father's
family emigrated from--

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First my Yeh Yeh in the '20s

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And later, my Ng Ng
and Ai Gu in 1948,

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The year the first
transistor was invented.

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I might hear in that
technology my family's song

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In broken pieces, bits of gossip

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Like a game of telephone
or Chinese whispers--

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Your own, your own, cries
Llorona from those little phones

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inside our pockets.

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