The Secret Lion

The geography of the region in which this story is set is key to its plot and themes. The story takes place in the southern region of Arizona: The town where the narrator’s family initially live is on the Mexico border, and the family resettles three miles north of there.

This area of the American Southwest is dry and tends to lack lush greenery:

[The border] runs through desert and mountain country, from the western Chihuahuan Desert by New Mexico through a zone of grassland and oak-covered hills to the classic Sonoran Desert west of Nogales. The land gets more and more arid as one travels west, and the western third of the border is essentially devoid of human habitation (Griffith, James S. “The Arizona-Sonora Border: Line, Region, Magnet, and Filter.” Smithsonian Institution).

In the story, a nearby arroyo runs with water only in the summer months, indicating the region’s aridness. The golf course is a place so lush and green that it could not possibly exist naturally in this geographical setting. Only the rich can make it happen, presumably at a cost to others: Golf courses consume significant amounts of water for a nonessential service that benefits relatively few people.

By contrast, the story’s lower-class characters experience the natural elements as they are, or even as exacerbated by human activity. The nearby sewage treatment plant that dumps its waste into the arroyo demonstrates its contempt not only for the environment but for the people living nearby. Racism as well as classism may play a role in this decision, as Nogales is a predominantly Latinx community—upwards of 90%, as of 2021 (US Census Bureau. “Hispanic or Latino, Percent: Nogales City, Arizona.” Quick Facts). The hills and valleys of this desert region likewise play a symbolic role in developing The Reality of Class Differences: They demarcate the haves from the have-nots and conceal the golf course from the latter.

Lastly, Arizona’s economy has traditionally relied heavily on mining, as much of the land is naturally rich in metallic ores. This explains the presence of the grinding ball, a mining tool that the boys find by the side of a railway.