This year marks the 75th anniversary of a deportation flight that crashed in California’s Central Valley in 1948. The accident killed all on board, including 28 migrant workers, many of them part of the Bracero program and who were being returned to Mexico.
The crash was devastating enough, killing workers who’d entered the U.S. to provide for themselves and their families. But NPR said that while early reporting identified the white crew members and immigration officer, the deceased migrants were identified only as “deportees.” And while the bodies of the white victims were flown home to be laid to rest, migrants were buried in a mass grave.
In fact, until 2013, a marker at their gravesite in Fresno, California, identified them only as "28 Mexican citizens who died in an airplane accident." The Los Angeles Times reported in 2013 that the cemetery register listed each victim only as "Mexican National."
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The injustices around the crash inspired legendary folk singer and activist Woody Guthrie to write “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” a classic song that’s since its publishing date been covered by the likes of Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson.
In the song, Guthrie bids goodbye to the unknown friends he’d named Rosalita, Jesus, and Maria, and from their perspective sings that “some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted.” Once their work contracts were over, it was time “to move on.” They worked to feed us—not much has changed, because the U.S. agricultural industry remains dependent on the labor of migrant workers—but would instead get chased out “like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.”
“The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon, fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,” the lyrics continued. “Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves? The radio says, ‘They are just deportees.’”
“The Mexican passengers remained unnamed, memorialized only in the song, until author and American Book Award-winning poet Tim Z. Hernandez started investigating who they were, as part of an effort to restore the dignity of their names and stories,” NPR said. The Los Angeles Times’ 2013 report says that Hernandez had been researching a totally unrelated subject at the Fresno County Library when a headline about the crash caught his attention.
"Who were the people on that plane?" he told told the outlet. "Did anyone ever tell their loved ones why they didn't come home?"
His efforts to get more information at the cemetery diocese were unsuccessful, until he tried a person with a Latino surname. "I have the names," Carlos Rascon, director of cemeteries for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, told him. Rascon’s father had himself been a bracero. The work since then has been piecing together incorrect names written by American officials, and from there seeking out surviving loved ones.
María Rodríguez Santana was the only woman on the plane, NPR said, and likely cooked for the other workers. ”Mike Rodríguez II was just 6 months old when his aunt died in the crash,” the report said. “Among the debris strewn across the crash site, someone found a bag of blue baby clothes that Rodríguez believes was intended as a gift for him. That’s why he wears a blue shirt whenever he attends events to commemorate the crash and honor the passengers.”
Her niece, Sandra Andrade, called her aunt “rare” and “courageous,” as someone who migrated across the border alone to work.
“I see my Tía María as a trailblazer,” Rodríguez III told PBS. A teacher of ethnic studies, he’s also an advocate for his immigrant students, the report said. “We have some very strong women in our family, and I see Tía María as one of the starters of that tradition.”
It would not be until about a decade ago that Tía María and the 27 other migrants would be honored when a new plaque was unveiled at their gravesite in Fresno and their names were read aloud. The plaque bearing their names was funded through donations organized by Hernandez, with a portion of the funds coming from the Woody Guthrie Foundation, Huff Post said. The Los Angeles Times reported that Guthrie’s song was performed at the vigil.