The University of Arizona Press

Albert Alvarez was the first student in a linguistic training program for American Indians at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to that, he attended school on the Tohono O’odham reservation, dividing his boyhood between his grandparents’ home and the farm labor camps of southern Arizona where his parents worked. From M.I.T., Alvarez returned to the reservation at Sells, Arizona, to work as a linguist and day laborer. His writings on the sound system of Tohono O’odham and Tohono O’odham puns have been published in linguistic journals.