“Canary in the minefield”.

By focusing on the vaqueros and their horses, I am drawing a community often overlooked—those living at the intersection of labor, culture, and environmental injustice.

The phrase “cultural canaries” is especially resonant: these horses and their caretakers live closest to the harm, embodying both resilience and vulnerability.positioning animals not simply as subjects, but as connective tissue between people, place, and time—bridging ecology, culture, survival, and story.

Framing animals as "carriers of meaning" and "witnesses" to environmental and cultural conditions is powerful, especially in polluted, post-industrial spaces where both human and non-human lives are marginalized.