defstruct being re-cast as array in procedure called within procedure

I have three procedures: portDesign(), portCellview(), and loadPortMap().

portDesign() is the "top level" procedure

loadPortMap() is called within portDesign(), converts a DPL to a 2D association table whose elements are defstructs, and returns that.

portCellview() is called within portDesign() and uses the 2D association table. However, when portCellView() attempts to access one of these defstruct elements, I get a get/getq error of "first arg must be either symbol, list, defstruct or usertype - array@0x12345678".

If I pp(associationTable[0][0]) in portDesign, it prints defstruct_name@0x12345678. if I pp(associationTable[0][0]) in portCellview, it prints array@0x12345678. It seems that its pointing to the right location, but somehow is confusing the variable type.

Any idea what's going on here and how to fix it? (See some psuedo code below)

I suspect it may be a scoping issue. Note: If I put the assocTable in portDesign()'s prog(), and pass the variable to portCellView(), I still observe the same behavior.

procedure(portDesign()
prog(()
assocTable = loadPortMap()
pprint(assocTable[0][0]) ;prints ds@0x...
portCellView(); throws error
))

procedure(portCellView()
prog((dummy)
pp(assocTable[0][0]) ;prints array@0x... (same address as above)
dummy = assocTable[0][0]->ds_ele ;throws error
))

procedure(loadPortMap()
prog((assocTable)
assocTable = makeTable("assoc1"
)assocTable[0] = makeTable("assoc2")
assocTable[0][0] = make_ds(?ds_ele 1)
return(assocTable)
))

defstruct(ds ds_ele)