vimarsana.com

When the plane crash happened in 1948 and the news reports went across the country, Woody Guthrie was in new york at the time and, of course, one of the great rebellious folk icons that is, he heard the news report and he really was upset at the omission of his the needs. He himself a travel to the San Joaquin Valley and so he is a money with the plight of the migrant farmworkers at the time. He was upset by the omission of any said thats no way to treat our brothers and sisters. He wrote a poem about it, and in his poem he attempts to restore the dignity of those anonymous passengers by giving them fake names or finding them names. He said in his poem goodbye to my lawn, goodbye rosalita, adios. You wont have your name when you ride the big airplane. All the will call you is deportee. It was that phrase, all the will call you will be deportee. That really caught my attention and i thought isnt all they will call us . Because i come from income of migrant farmer because thats my story. To me that was the piece i gravitated towards. All they will call you. Who is a bay . What do they call you . To me that was a poetic piece of that lyric. I use that for the title of the book. During world war ii there were negotiations between mexico and the united states, both president s at the time, the early 40s, and the result of those conversations were how can mexico be on the basis of the commission was how can mexico be an ally to the u. S. During its time of need . The result of that was what they call abrazo subtle program. In this case working arms. And so america said we could use more workers here. Said he looked to the brothers and sisters in the south in mexico and the begin of this program that started to literally bus and train people, mexicans in, mexican workers in. The first series, the first, the Pilot Program was the imported about 4000 workers to the Central Valley to the town of stockton north of fresno. It was such a success by the farmer standards, they begin work in the fields right away, such a success, the farmer said bring more, bring more. Within the next couple of years that upwards of 40, 50,000 workers. Now they were not only being used for agricultural labor, they were being used to build railroads and all kinds of things across the country during world war ii, while our country was off at war. And after the war is over, what do we do with all of the brothers and sisters we invited in to work with us . Its time to send them back. In fact, some of the politicians here in the Central Valley at the time would come out and state the kind of workers specifically were looking for is the kind of worker that does a great job here, doesnt come to look for trouble and then we can send back when were done. They would say that publicly. And so in 1948 here we are accused after the words and the copiers after the war has ended, 1948, actually and 47 they begin sending back sort of a mass deportation. They do mass round up all across the valley, specially because this were a big portion of where the workers had come. In some cases the workers contracts up. Some cases they were here without papers and in some cases they were just rounded up as a part of the roundup. A minute of the cases even throughout history, \30{l1}s{l0}\30{l1}s{l0}, 40s and into the 50s, some of them were american citizens they were sending back. Thats why the drag that was so wide. Brown skinned people, lets get in, get in, send the back. As what was happening that morning at 1940. They they had rounded up a group of workers and their sending them back. They were deporting to pick this time they just started to use the douglas d. C. Airplanes. Those airplane for the workhorse of world war ii but now they had a surplus of your point. What do you do with your points . Lets change the name. They were called c47 at the time during the war. Lets call it a d. C. Three because of the Douglas Aircraft Company was making him. Lets do away with the aroma of war inside airplanes come clean them up, give them a paint job, but since he can and use them to depart folks. Thats what they did. 1948, this, this airplane left oakland, california, on january 28 at 9 30 a. M. And as a token of his headed towards tijuana, the san diego border to drop off reportedly 28 mexican citizens. All meant except one woman. That airplane also had a pilot, a copilot, a stewardess who was the pilots wife and an immigration officer. About an hour into the flight coming into Fresno County, leaving the bay area flying over the Diablo Mountain range coming into Fresno County the plane experienced difficulty with the left engine. The plane began to tumble in the air right as is coming into the valley, it tumbled in the air and it crashed right in Los Gatos Canyon which is about 60 miles southwest of fresno. It was annihilated and all the folks, ranch owners, they witnessed it. There was a nearby Fresno County prison camp, minimumsecurity place. All the precious route in the art and all saw it happen. They all witnessed it. And so i love those folks with a 120 use for interviews in the book, the eye witnesses who saw the plane crash. It changed the life for the people who witness it, changed their lives. That was what was happening that morning. A media report of the incident, it was at the time it was labeled the worst airplane disaster in californias history, 1940, gender 28. The media and a lot of media reports referred to them as deportees. The ap is one of the more popular ones, the 28 mexican deportees being sent back to mexico all killed. All of the newspapers, there was no mention of the names with the exception of one newspaper. My bad, with the exception of two newspapers. The fresno bee made an attempt to publish the names a couple days after the accident. The names were badly misspelled, erroneous. Some of them look like theyre spelled phonetically. But there was an attempt and on the publish i think maybe a dozen of the names. The only newspaper that did publish the names, and thats the popular, the popular belief of the time or even now was maybe they didnt have access to the names, or where were the names . Or how did he find the names . I thought to myself as an author he was exploring this idea, there was a manifest somewhere, a government program. Somebody has the names, right . Lo and behold i find an article published in Spanish Language independent newspaper, only published in french at the time specifically publish for the Mexican Community and fresno, for the mexican farmworker. It is published writer in chinatown. That newspaper list, since you are the names of all the dead compadres who died in his plane crash. Not only the names and heres also their hometowns were there from and heres the surviving family members. It lists all of them. When i found the article it was a jackpot. It was a spanishlanguage newspaper that did the injustice and gave them their due. Just think the names which is a basic human right. It wasnt about trying to spew some by spiny things like that. It was here are the names come here are the family members, they lived. That paper came to me by the way of one of the family members when i finally found the first family member, the ramirez family, still all about and heard the story. They knew the story and he said to me when i first met him, at his restaurant, he said do you have a list of the names . I said i do, but the list i have is sort of inaccurate. He said i have a list. What list do you have . He said hang on. He opens up this envelope and he reaches in and pulls out this old tattered, stained, wrinkled and newspaper. Its from 1948. The Mexican Consulate has agreed to the Mexican Consulate had sent his summit this newspaper as evidence of their family members death. That family had kept it for over 60 years, that newspaper. He gave that newspaper to meet and is the only surviving newspaper your private research for other copies and ive affect any. Thats the only one. One of the things i knew upfront about the story was i didnt want this story, i didnt feel like i needed to imbue it with any political agenda, overtly political agenda. The story was such a human story. The story itself was a metaphor. Already had metaphor. It was imbued with metaphor. Heres this one vehicle transporting 28 mexican people, for them caucasian, the pilot, world war ii hero, the copilot also world war ii hero. You wouldnt want any other pilot flying that plane. If youre going to fly in that plane thats the pilot you would want. He had crash landed that same plane before during world war ii in the india burma hump. That was like a graveyard for those planes. He has found the airplane on one engine before and yet over 2000 something hours in that specific airplane. Thats the pilot you wanted. He was a newlywed. He was 30, and his wife was a stewardess. The pilots name was Frank Atkinson. His wife was bobby atkinson. Theyd only been married the year before, you know, and they were just starting their lies. In fact this is going to be his last flight and then he is going to retire and go back to working for the military again on some other duty. His wife was not a stewardess, a fact because wife was, at the time im not sure what she was doing, but she wasnt a stewardess. She had no businessman on their plan, in other words, and what happened was a stewardess could make it that morning and they called in sick. According to the family one of them was hung over from a party the night before. She called in sick, and i guess the time you couldnt fly one of those planes without legally having a stewardess on board, someone for service. So frank said to his wife, would you want to come with us . You dont have to do much come, and board, a quick flight, and she said sure, ill go. We will get paid extra, cool. She jumped in a plane with them. The family, according to the family only two weeks before the accident, frank i guess had expressed difficult in another airplane until his wife made a comment to some friends and family, if something were to ever happen to frankie, i would want to be within. That was two weeks before she was with him when the plane crashed. I was able to interview the atkinson, and i learned other than being newlyweds, frankie was an amazing young man. One of the most beautiful i think comments i heard about someone who read the book, actually the grandson and nephew of two of the mexican pastors said to me, one of the most profound stories that impacted me in the book he said is the story of Frank Atkinson. He said because i can identify with frank. That blew my mind, you know . One of the grandsons of amanda came here to register the mcateer on his own, he saw an in frank, i said why . Because as a young man i can relate to what he was doing for his family, Frank Atkinson during the depression, as a young man what go out and cut rail ties and make . 50 or whatever and bring it back to his parents and help them survive. He said i remember doing doing the same thing in mexico for my Mother Africa went into this and bring it back the change i was making. So i knew early on that this book, all they do is talk about the humanity behind each of the people aboard, all 32 passengers. You know all these glaring humanities illuminated in that and i dont have to push any of these sort of, i dont have to do any of that political rhetoric around for in view the book with any of that. The humanity is helpful. You read those letters and you cant deny that here stands two men who love their family, working hard for their family. On january 30, 1948, the Funeral Services happened at a holy cross in fresno which is right in the Central Valley and four or 500 people were here and the services had 28 coffins lined up. Again, on that day of january 30 they were doing a service and only interred a few of the cost coffins because it would take two days to enter all 28 coffins so before the crowd they entered a couple coffins. And then once everybody dispersed and went about their lives, the coffins were put in the ground. Buried over and then there was as i understand it, it wasnt initially but years later someone donated a placard and thats uncertain because theres no record of it. Maybe it was in fresno, maybe it was a local person interested but years ago someone donated a placard and the placard said it was anonymous. It didnt even say buried here. Says 28 mexican citizens died in a plane crash january 28, 1948, rest in peace. Didnt say they were buried here. 28 people died, rest in peace. It was such a small placard and it was set there and thats all it had for years. Its just this giant patch of green grass where they dont allow any other headstones anymore. People go by and say that looks like a beautiful spot. You try to inquire about buying that and they cant, its the spot where all these people are buried. But it wasnt until when i came upon the story in 2010 and i learned of it, this was the first place i came. I said ive got to find out where they are buried and it was astonishing that they, i found out they were buried in the largest mass grave in californias history up until that point, 1948. So all the remains of the 28 passengers were pushed into this area, covered over and an anonymous placard there and that was it for 50 something years. Im marked on the door of the diocese and i said did he have a name . They said well, lets look up his file and they looked at the file and came back and said we dont have the names. We have the file that on that file where every name should be, it just says mexican national, mexican national. That was it. Even they were kind of astonished by that because they were around at the time. One of the cemetery directors was new at the time. So he and i started talking and i said im looking for the names. I said i went to the hall of records in Fresno County. They wont give me access to the names because i had to be related to one of them. You all have official business, maybe you could go. He said ill do that. He went and a week later he calls me and he says i have a list of names and gave it to me. He and i stood here behind me, that anonymous placard and looked at the names and we were excited because it was the first, middle and last name we could tell some of them were spelled wrong but it was that list of names that led me on the search. I knew once i had a list of names, i asked him. I said what would it take, im way out of my league here but what would it take, youre a cemetery director to do the correct list of names . What would it take to put them on the headstone here . Well, it would take two things. A message from the bishop and money. I said how much money . He said at least 10,000. So all right, you work on getting permission from the bishop, ill work on it in the money. And in fact, about a month prior to that i it was a good friend of mine lance, a local musician who he and i had been collaborating on this project and he and i first said to ourselves, i said once we find all this we should figure out how to put that headstone there. He was standing with a cemetery director, i had that idea and i said hes a beloved musician here so i knew if i have artist power, were going to raise the money. Lance led the charge of trying to raise the money and we did. We ended up within three or four months we had 13,000. All this information from the bishop, the bishop agreed so on labor day 2013 we installed the headstone here behind me. And that headstone is now a four by eight red slab and it was used to bury the bishop. Thats the headstone used and on that slab it tells you the story of what happened and it has the names of every passenger aboard including the crew as well. Then it has 32 leads around the stone. Who are these friends all scattered, the radio says they are deportees. They are not deportees, not anymore. One of the beautiful things this memorial has done behind me is we still included in the foundation, that original plaque to show how it went from anonymity to having a name there. All the talk surrounding immigration today, all the rhetoric around immigration , its become a vast sea of noise. Some of it of value, some of it creates valuable dialogue but a lot of it, especially today as we enter this new administration, we start to hear everywhere, not just from politicians from but from people in general, we hear the ramped up poller of us versus them or immigrants versus americans. That rhetoric is out there and i feel like we get lost in that. I think a part of that is intentional. It gets lost in that rhetoric, that abstraction. Is the humanity, the human face behind it and i feel like this book provides the opportunity for us to look through that rhetoric, cut through it and look at one situation, one isolated situation. 28 mexicans, four american citizens. All crashed and all regardless of race, regardless of social status, regardless of spiritual beliefs or background, they all met the same fate together. Glenn ferrys son, they were in one transport were deported to that great other place in the sky. Thats what i hope people take from it is that we are all in this together. [music] during book tvs recent visit to fresno california, we explored the Thomas J Ebert run to your collection which includes over 2000 books on the american frontier at fresno state university. When i was a kid, Public Library consigned to the children in the basement at the library. Only nonfiction books they had were books on the American West and since ive always been a nonfiction person, i bought, i Read Everything good there, on the American West, primarily on native american. Over the years, the 50s when i was growing up was a time when you had all the movies

© 2024 Vimarsana

vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.