WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:03.760 Dear listener, Before we begin today's show, we have some 2 00:00:03.920 --> 00:00:08.039 news to share. Starting next week, the podcast version of 3 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.560 Latino USA is going to be distributed by the Makurdura 4 00:00:11.680 --> 00:00:15.360 Network at iHeartMedia. That is the biggest Latino vertical in 5 00:00:15.400 --> 00:00:18.840 the podcast industry with over two hundred and fifty million 6 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:23.200 monthly listeners. So doing this is an opportunity for our 7 00:00:23.239 --> 00:00:26.400 stories to reach more listeners than ever at a critical 8 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:30.280 time in our country's history. It also makes us more 9 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:34.680 resilient as an independent news nonprofit. 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So if you want to support 20 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:12.479 us and get the benefit of listening to these episodes, 21 00:01:12.520 --> 00:01:17.360 ad free it's easy join fuoduo plus. Go to Fuduomedia 22 00:01:17.440 --> 00:01:21.319 group dot org slash join plus. That way you get 23 00:01:21.319 --> 00:01:24.080 all our content, you support foodudo media, you don't get 24 00:01:24.080 --> 00:01:28.720 any ads. Easy. Thank you and as always, yes. 25 00:01:30.440 --> 00:01:33.320 Hello, hey, ernandaw are you. 26 00:01:34.080 --> 00:01:37.319 I'm well, it's so nice to see you. It's been many, 27 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:39.040 many years. 28 00:01:38.600 --> 00:01:40.160 It has I know, it's incredible. 29 00:01:41.520 --> 00:01:45.080 That's Tim Hernandez, an author and investigative researcher. And yeah, 30 00:01:45.160 --> 00:01:47.440 it's been a while since we talked. It feels like 31 00:01:47.520 --> 00:01:49.440 so much has happened. But also it feels like I 32 00:01:49.480 --> 00:01:52.360 was justin like the Fresno area. 33 00:01:52.440 --> 00:01:54.639 I know that was eight I think eight years ago already. 34 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:56.360 So yeah, it's been a while, and look. 35 00:01:56.160 --> 00:01:59.000 At us, we still look like not a day over 36 00:01:59.080 --> 00:01:59.920 twenty five. 37 00:02:00.360 --> 00:02:01.520 Right, Thank you, thank you. 38 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:05.920 I'm catching up with Tim today because he emailed to 39 00:02:05.960 --> 00:02:08.840 say there have been some interesting developments on a story 40 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:11.720 that I did back on twenty eighteen, So that's why 41 00:02:11.760 --> 00:02:16.720 I'm going to be hosting the show today. The story 42 00:02:16.760 --> 00:02:19.000 I'm talking about is the story of a plane that 43 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:22.960 crashed in nineteen forty eight on that flight where twenty 44 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:27.000 eight Mexican citizens who were being deported from the United States, 45 00:02:27.880 --> 00:02:31.800 the plane crashed, everyone on board died. The American crew 46 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:34.560 members had their bodies sent home to their families for 47 00:02:34.600 --> 00:02:38.119 a proper burial, but the twenty eight farm workers were 48 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:43.720 buried in a mass grave, nameless. This is the story 49 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:47.040 of Tim's search to find the families of those twenty 50 00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:51.080 eight passengers, and above all, honestly, it's a story that 51 00:02:51.160 --> 00:02:53.040 feels very connected to the present. 52 00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:56.440 It's important for us to look back at history to 53 00:02:56.600 --> 00:03:02.880 understand the lasting impact of of deportations over generations. 54 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:05.880 Since our story aired, Tim has been able to connect 55 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:09.240 with seven more families, and I have to say that 56 00:03:09.320 --> 00:03:13.560 doesn't happen often. Our story contributed to his life mission 57 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:16.120 of identifying the families of the dead. 58 00:03:16.880 --> 00:03:18.840 I was just on my phone, just kind of scrolling 59 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:21.240 through Twitter, just kind of, you know, picking up what 60 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:24.560 was happening in the day's events, and I came across 61 00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:28.680 this story right of a plane crash. And when I 62 00:03:28.720 --> 00:03:31.880 saw that, it just it automatically clicked in my mind. 63 00:03:31.919 --> 00:03:33.959 I said, Wow, you know what, there's a story in 64 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:36.000 our family of a plane crash. 65 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:38.720 We're going to hear more about those updates later, but 66 00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:41.560 first you have to hear the story. So we're going 67 00:03:41.640 --> 00:03:44.520 to play you the story that originally aired in twenty eighteen. 68 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:47.120 You'll notice that some of the time references are a 69 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:50.200 bit different because it's now been seventy seven years since 70 00:03:50.200 --> 00:03:56.040 the crash happened. Stay tuned for those updates. This is 71 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:59.960 Latino USA. I'm Fernande Chavarri in for our host Marino Jo. 72 00:04:00.720 --> 00:04:06.480 Let's get to our story. On a Wednesday morning, just 73 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:09.800 after ten am, a plane was flying over Los Gato's 74 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:13.960 Canyon in California Central Valley. It was nineteen forty eight 75 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:20.560 in February. The pilot noticed something was wrong, but he 76 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:23.320 had been to war and he had landed planes and 77 00:04:23.400 --> 00:04:27.320 emergency situations before, so his training kicked in and he 78 00:04:27.400 --> 00:04:30.919 started looking for a place to land the plane. But 79 00:04:31.040 --> 00:04:35.520 then as he went over the canyon, something unexpected happened. 80 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:39.400 The left wing suddenly fell off and the rest of 81 00:04:39.440 --> 00:04:43.400 the plane caught on fire. The plane started spinning out 82 00:04:43.400 --> 00:04:47.040 of control. It hit the ground nose first, and it exploded, 83 00:04:47.440 --> 00:04:48.839 killing everyone on board. 84 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:54.039 When that first person that I saw was pulled out 85 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:57.440 of the plane, there was no head and the arms 86 00:04:57.480 --> 00:04:59.279 and legs were gone. There's just the. 87 00:05:01.240 --> 00:05:04.360 The plane was headed to Elcentral California, a half hour 88 00:05:04.400 --> 00:05:07.120 from the border with Mexico. And this wasn't just a 89 00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:10.640 regular commercial flight. There were thirty two people on the plane, 90 00:05:10.920 --> 00:05:14.640 four Americans, including three crew members and an immigration official, 91 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:21.680 and twenty eight migrant farm workers. Everyone died that morning, 92 00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:25.000 all in the same way, but they were not all 93 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:28.599 treated the same after death. The twenty eight Mexican field 94 00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:31.440 workers on that plane were known as Braseros. They had 95 00:05:31.440 --> 00:05:33.719 come here at the request of the US government and 96 00:05:33.760 --> 00:05:37.320 were headed back to Mexico, but didn't make it. After 97 00:05:37.360 --> 00:05:41.000 the crash, only the remains of the four Americans were 98 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:44.680 sent back to their families. The Mexican citizens were buried 99 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:48.320 in a mass grave in California under a tiny plaque 100 00:05:48.520 --> 00:05:49.280 that red. 101 00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:53.760 Twenty eight Mexican citizens who die in an airplane accident 102 00:05:53.839 --> 00:05:54.880 near Colinga. 103 00:05:55.320 --> 00:05:59.680 Twenty eight Mexican citizens. That's all they would call them, 104 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:01.479 and for decades that's all. 105 00:06:01.520 --> 00:06:01.960 There was. 106 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:05.760 No one identified the remains of the twenty eight passengers, 107 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.479 No one asked for their families, No one really paid 108 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:12.440 attention until a Mexican American author came along and they 109 00:06:12.480 --> 00:06:19.880 became personal From Futuro Media and per x It's Latino 110 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:23.520 USA am Fernanda Chavarri in for our host Maria jo Josa. 111 00:06:24.320 --> 00:06:26.800 Today we go back to find out who were the 112 00:06:26.839 --> 00:06:29.839 twenty eight unnamed people on that grave and meet a 113 00:06:29.880 --> 00:06:36.400 man who made it his life mission to give them names. 114 00:06:38.480 --> 00:06:40.960 And to do that, I'm joined by Latino USA producer 115 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:41.800 Maggie Feeling. 116 00:06:41.880 --> 00:06:44.960 Hey, Maggie, Hey, Fernanda. So when you and I found 117 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:47.360 out about this incident, we were talking about how these 118 00:06:47.400 --> 00:06:51.160 people were virtually forgotten. They were nameless in death and 119 00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:55.039 in the news. But the crash itself, it turns out 120 00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:57.800 that more people might know about it than they realize. 121 00:06:58.040 --> 00:07:08.480 Goodbye by, And it's all because of one song that 122 00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:10.480 kept the story alive throughout the decades. 123 00:07:10.680 --> 00:07:14.120 A song that has a very long, confusing title, Deep. 124 00:07:13.880 --> 00:07:18.320 Porti parentheses playing record Los Gatos, and it's sung here 125 00:07:18.360 --> 00:07:22.720 by Pete Seeger, a super famous American folk music icon. 126 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:30.840 Six hundred miles to that Mexico border. They chases like alaws. 127 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.920 But Pete didn't write the song, He just made it famous. 128 00:07:33.960 --> 00:07:37.680 In the nineteen fifties. Pete's good friend Woody Guthrie wrote it. 129 00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:39.600 When wood He heard about the crash on the radio, 130 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:42.840 he felt this strong sense of injustice. So he wrote 131 00:07:42.840 --> 00:07:45.800 his feelings down as a poem, and it later became 132 00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:46.680 the song. 133 00:07:46.640 --> 00:07:51.120 All all these friends, all scattered like dry leans. On 134 00:07:51.480 --> 00:07:55.320 radio sends they are just deep arty. 135 00:07:55.600 --> 00:07:58.360 Who are these friends who are scattered like dried leaves? 136 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:01.080 The radio said they were just deportise. 137 00:08:01.840 --> 00:08:04.440 These kinds of poems and lyrics were not unusual for 138 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:07.280 Woody Guthrie. He was always sort of a revolutionary. 139 00:08:07.960 --> 00:08:12.000 Woody was kind of the embodiment of your quote unquote 140 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:15.080 every man in the sense that he lived and worked 141 00:08:15.200 --> 00:08:20.720 and wrote and traveled among the people. I'm Nora Guthrie, 142 00:08:20.840 --> 00:08:22.600 and I'm Woody Guthrie's daughter. 143 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:25.640 We called Nora to find out why wood he wrote this. 144 00:08:26.040 --> 00:08:29.600 There was a very strong similarity between the migrant workers 145 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:33.440 in the nineteen thirties and the Oakies in the nineteen thirties. 146 00:08:33.640 --> 00:08:37.360 The Okies were farmers in Arkansas, Kansas, Tennessee, and of 147 00:08:37.400 --> 00:08:40.480 course Oklahoma. They lost their homes during the dust Bowl 148 00:08:40.480 --> 00:08:43.760 and migrated to California. Woody Guthrie was one of these people. 149 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:48.040 When Woody came to California, he was homeless, living in 150 00:08:48.200 --> 00:08:52.480 tents and little tin shacks, and so were the Mexican 151 00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:55.679 field workers. They're kind of all in the same boat, 152 00:08:55.760 --> 00:08:59.959 and I think that just instinctively he connected with their plug. 153 00:09:00.520 --> 00:09:03.160 He didn't start out to be political. He started out 154 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:06.520 just being curious, so he would always dig further and 155 00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:10.560 further into the news reports. And that was what happened 156 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:12.320 with the playing record Los Gatos. 157 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:15.319 Somewhere along the way, Pete Seeger, who was Woody's friend, 158 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:17.680 got ahold of the poem, set it to music, and 159 00:09:17.760 --> 00:09:21.200 started singing it. Then the song got huge. It took 160 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:23.160 on a life of its own and was covered by 161 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:24.359 dozens of musicians. 162 00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:27.120 Johnny Cash, Johnny Rodriguez. 163 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:38.120 Roll In and Dolly Parton, orangz. 164 00:09:37.400 --> 00:09:44.280 Jo Bias is so Dumb, Bob Dylan's Yeah, Mexico Harder, 165 00:09:44.640 --> 00:09:53.200 they call him money, Burce Springsteen, and Woody's son Arlo 166 00:09:53.280 --> 00:09:59.760 gu Three Legos is Lucy Maria. 167 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:03.079 So you have all these super famous all American music 168 00:10:03.280 --> 00:10:06.720 icons singing about Mexican farm workers in the nineteen forties. 169 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:09.400 And it's really crazy because this song was sung throughout 170 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.839 the decades, and yet nobody bothered to find out who 171 00:10:12.920 --> 00:10:13.560 these people were. 172 00:10:14.160 --> 00:10:18.480 And my father left a lot of songs like this. 173 00:10:19.240 --> 00:10:22.520 Sometimes I call them like seeds to be harvested by 174 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:26.199 the next generation. So the thing is that he left 175 00:10:26.280 --> 00:10:31.800 this song with the question why weren't the deportees. 176 00:10:31.160 --> 00:10:37.720 Namely, Oh, they will call you. 177 00:10:38.160 --> 00:10:39.839 These are the words that kept humming in my head. 178 00:10:39.880 --> 00:10:41.920 All they will call you, will be deport All they 179 00:10:41.960 --> 00:10:44.760 will call you. I'm Tim Hernandez, and I'm the author 180 00:10:44.800 --> 00:10:47.520 who's been working on this plane. Requet los gatos for 181 00:10:47.559 --> 00:10:50.960 the last seven years of your book is the name 182 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:52.200 of my book? Is all they will call you. 183 00:10:52.400 --> 00:10:55.160 So here's where Tim comes in. He's a professor and 184 00:10:55.200 --> 00:10:57.960 an author, so he's always sort of digging for stories. 185 00:10:58.640 --> 00:11:01.360 One day, Tim was doing recent search for something unrelated 186 00:11:01.400 --> 00:11:05.160 back in twenty ten when he came across a newspaper article. 187 00:11:04.880 --> 00:11:07.240 And it said one hundred people see an airplane fall 188 00:11:07.280 --> 00:11:10.200 out of the sky ship plunge to earth and it 189 00:11:10.240 --> 00:11:11.520 was a farm labor accident. 190 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:14.560 So Tim was like, weird, that sounds familiar, and he 191 00:11:14.640 --> 00:11:16.760 realized that it was the same story as the one 192 00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:19.040 he knew from the song, and the same way that 193 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:22.720 Woody Guthrie was bothered by the injustice decades ago, Tim 194 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:25.959 too wanted resolution for the families of the victims, so 195 00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:28.120 Tim set off on a quest. 196 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:30.760 You know, I just let my curiosity sort of pull me, 197 00:11:30.800 --> 00:11:32.960 and I began to ask who is all and who 198 00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:35.920 are they? And what do they call you? And that's 199 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:36.800 just what kept me going. 200 00:11:36.800 --> 00:11:38.840 That was a s a quest that over the years 201 00:11:38.920 --> 00:11:41.720 became more and more personal for Tim as he saw 202 00:11:41.760 --> 00:11:44.400 the similarities between his life growing up in the Central 203 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:47.240 Valley and the migrant farm workers who died that day. 204 00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:53.320 You know, growing up the son of migrant farm workers, 205 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:59.400 I saw first hand the moments where my family felt voiceless, 206 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:01.880 and I started to see them play out as I 207 00:12:01.920 --> 00:12:04.160 got older. Not beyond my family, I'd see them play 208 00:12:04.160 --> 00:12:05.679 out in the broader community. 209 00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:05.920 You know. 210 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:08.160 Tim put himself in the shoes of these twenty eight 211 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:11.360 families and thought, this could have been me, This could 212 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:12.360 have been my family. 213 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:15.800 I was born and raised here in California's San Joaquin Valley, 214 00:12:15.800 --> 00:12:19.960 the agricultural hub here. My parents were actually migrant farm workers, 215 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:23.240 originally from South Texas and New Mexico, you know, kind 216 00:12:23.240 --> 00:12:25.880 of growing up with migrant family, you know, we traveled 217 00:12:25.920 --> 00:12:27.840 a lot quite a bit, working in different fields and 218 00:12:27.880 --> 00:12:31.200 different harvests throughout the year, and my parents did that 219 00:12:31.280 --> 00:12:33.440 pretty much you know up until I don't know, I 220 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:34.640 was about maybe eight or nine. 221 00:12:34.800 --> 00:12:38.360 And although Tim's family didn't participate in the Brassido program, 222 00:12:38.640 --> 00:12:41.760 they did spend generations working in the fields in Texas 223 00:12:41.760 --> 00:12:42.640 and California. 224 00:12:43.760 --> 00:12:49.240 Farming is America's biggest industry. All such farm jobs which 225 00:12:49.280 --> 00:12:53.160 are top dirty or unpleasant are generally referred to as 226 00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:53.920 stoop labor. 227 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:58.080 The Brasido program, to summarize, was a seasonal worker program 228 00:12:58.160 --> 00:13:01.080 that was the sort of amicable agree between the US 229 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:04.000 and Mexico that went on from the early forties to 230 00:13:04.040 --> 00:13:04.959 the mid sixties. 231 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:05.720 Brasseros. 232 00:13:06.400 --> 00:13:09.520 At that time, the US desperately needed workers to pick 233 00:13:09.520 --> 00:13:10.679 fruits and vegetables. 234 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:13.280 It isn't easy to find men willing to take on 235 00:13:13.400 --> 00:13:17.400 such undesirable kinds of work. Understandably, then, the American farm 236 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:21.800 labor supply falls short and is supplemented by Mexican citizens. 237 00:13:21.800 --> 00:13:25.000 So they gave Mexican farm workers temporary permits to come 238 00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:28.280 here and do the work. Millions of Mexican workers came 239 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:28.680 and went. 240 00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:31.680 When the harvesting season was over and the US government 241 00:13:31.760 --> 00:13:34.319 didn't need them anymore, they would send them back by 242 00:13:34.360 --> 00:13:36.480 train or fly them by plane. 243 00:13:36.600 --> 00:13:41.280 And that morning that's exactly what was happening. Those twenty 244 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:44.760 eight migrant workers were flying from San Francisco to El Centro, 245 00:13:45.280 --> 00:13:47.959 right on the border with Mexico in a US government 246 00:13:48.040 --> 00:13:52.440 chartered plane. 247 00:13:52.920 --> 00:13:55.880 So, based on Tim's research and interviews with the families 248 00:13:55.920 --> 00:14:00.840 over the years, here's what happened. After the crash, officials 249 00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:04.839 recovered as many scattered body parts as they could. Then 250 00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:08.360 they formally notified the families of the four Americans and 251 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:12.080 sent them caskets of piece together remains, some as far 252 00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:13.320 as upstate New York. 253 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:18.440 As for the Mexican passengers, the leftover body parts were 254 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:21.000 also put in caskets, but they were not sent back 255 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:23.800 to Mexico. They were buried in that mass grave we 256 00:14:23.880 --> 00:14:27.640 mentioned earlier, fourteen on one side, fourteen on the other, 257 00:14:27.880 --> 00:14:29.680 in Fresno, California. 258 00:14:29.800 --> 00:14:34.600 So the Mexican passengers' bodies were never repatriated. Some families 259 00:14:34.640 --> 00:14:37.600 in Mexico were notified by the Mexican government via letter, 260 00:14:38.160 --> 00:14:41.480 others only heard about it on the radio. It's unclear 261 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:45.240 exactly how each of the families found out and if 262 00:14:45.280 --> 00:14:47.400 they even knew where their loved ones were buried. 263 00:14:49.560 --> 00:14:51.960 We reached out to the Mexican government officials at the 264 00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:55.560 embassy in DC, but were denied an interview. Of course, 265 00:14:55.600 --> 00:14:57.520 we weren't going to find people working there who were 266 00:14:57.560 --> 00:15:00.920 working for the Mexican government seventy years ago, but we 267 00:15:00.960 --> 00:15:04.360 wanted to know how the government handle this. An official 268 00:15:04.400 --> 00:15:07.600 said via email that today their policy is to help 269 00:15:07.680 --> 00:15:11.640 families in Mexico find funeral homes and cremation services in 270 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:14.720 the US, and that based on the family's financial need, 271 00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:17.840 the Mexican government can help them pay for part of 272 00:15:17.880 --> 00:15:20.120 the cost of getting their remains back to Mexico. 273 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:23.000 We also wanted to know how only some of the 274 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:26.400 victims of the crash ended up identified, so to find 275 00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:29.360 out we flew to meet Tim Ornandez in California. 276 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:32.760 This is all cattle territory up here. It's Los Gatus Canyon. 277 00:15:32.800 --> 00:15:33.640 It's all ranchers. 278 00:15:33.840 --> 00:15:35.960 Fay's family were cattle ranchers up there. 279 00:15:36.040 --> 00:15:38.480 They were And did you see the house. 280 00:15:38.520 --> 00:15:41.080 I'm sorry, I know they're the cutest little baby cats. 281 00:15:42.520 --> 00:15:44.160 Did you see the big long horns earlier? 282 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:47.440 Yes, We're driving a ko linga about an hour southwest 283 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:49.840 from Fresno with Tim and his friend Larry Hawes. 284 00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:53.600 Larry is sort of Tim's sidekick and an unofficial historian 285 00:15:53.640 --> 00:15:56.120 of his family, the family that owned the property where 286 00:15:56.120 --> 00:15:58.120 the plane crashed seventy one years ago. 287 00:15:58.240 --> 00:16:00.640 It's hard every turn looks the same here unless you 288 00:16:00.680 --> 00:16:02.560 know exactly where the crash happened. So then that's what 289 00:16:02.640 --> 00:16:05.600 prompted me to want to call find Larry's the Gaston family, 290 00:16:05.920 --> 00:16:08.320 so that I could identify exactly where it happened. 291 00:16:08.600 --> 00:16:10.360 I have to ask what are we driving through? What 292 00:16:10.480 --> 00:16:11.880 is what is this? 293 00:16:11.880 --> 00:16:14.400 This is called the oil patch, and this is the 294 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:20.000 Kalinga oil field, and this is Kalinga is actually coaling station. 295 00:16:20.160 --> 00:16:24.200 A oil was actually discovered here, and today there's a 296 00:16:24.280 --> 00:16:28.920 whole bunch of industrial oil derricks covering a huge part 297 00:16:29.040 --> 00:16:30.560 of a barren desert area. 298 00:16:30.680 --> 00:16:32.520 The plane would have been able to see these oil 299 00:16:32.560 --> 00:16:34.920 dereks as it was coming in here this way. And 300 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:38.280 because he had crashed landed that airplane twice before, it 301 00:16:38.800 --> 00:16:40.640 makes sense that the one could actually you know, you 302 00:16:40.640 --> 00:16:42.960 could surmise from that that he was more than likely 303 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:45.400 looking for a strip of dirt to land on. There's 304 00:16:45.400 --> 00:16:49.360 nothing you can do crash landed q that same exact 305 00:16:49.400 --> 00:16:51.480 airplane he had crashed landed twice before. 306 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:55.120 Okay, so it wasn't the exact plane, but the kind 307 00:16:55.160 --> 00:16:58.760 of plane, a Douglas DC three, which back in the 308 00:16:58.760 --> 00:17:03.360 thirties and forties was a pretty revolutionary plane. Frank Atkinson, 309 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:06.800 the pilot, was used to flying and crash landing the 310 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:08.040 DC three. 311 00:17:07.840 --> 00:17:10.560 So he thought he could land that plane again, and 312 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:12.919 he might have been able to if all that was 313 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:14.679 wrong was a plane malfunction. 314 00:17:15.280 --> 00:17:20.120 But plane wing broke off and it started spinning out 315 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:30.960 of control and throwing people out. So we're here, we 316 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:31.400 are here. 317 00:17:34.320 --> 00:17:41.680 We're going through a barbarie fence. I'm so short it 318 00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:42.719 fair works. 319 00:17:43.640 --> 00:17:46.400 This is the actual crash site, and this was where 320 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:49.880 the main bodies were at and dead people were everywhere 321 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:51.040 right where we're standing. 322 00:17:51.320 --> 00:17:54.320 Larry wasn't born when the plane crushed, but growing up 323 00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:57.400 he heard stories about that day and about how his 324 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:00.119 family raced to the scene to help in any way 325 00:18:00.119 --> 00:18:00.520 they could. 326 00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:02.879 Larry's mom and his aunt June were little girls at 327 00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:05.560 the time. His aunt June was nine years old when 328 00:18:05.560 --> 00:18:08.720 she saw the wreckage and is the only surviving witness 329 00:18:08.840 --> 00:18:09.800 in Larry's family. 330 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:11.960 June was stunning, you know, not too far off here 331 00:18:12.040 --> 00:18:13.359 looking at and eye witnessing all this. 332 00:18:13.920 --> 00:18:16.360 June is in her eighties now and remembers it all 333 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:19.760 in very graphic detail. So we called her at her 334 00:18:19.760 --> 00:18:22.520 home in North Carolina to get an account of what happened. 335 00:18:22.600 --> 00:18:26.679 We saw bushes with brains hanging on it, and my 336 00:18:26.800 --> 00:18:31.240 thoughts then, as a little girl, that looks like decorating 337 00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:35.480 a Christmas tree. It was just all over with these brains. 338 00:18:36.359 --> 00:18:38.880 At the time, June didn't realize the impact this would 339 00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:41.560 have on her beyond the trauma of witnessing a crash. 340 00:18:41.800 --> 00:18:44.640 Do you remember as you got older learning more about it. 341 00:18:45.520 --> 00:18:48.560 I do remember, because my mother was following it in 342 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:53.399 the papers, and I remember her shortly after that saying, 343 00:18:53.960 --> 00:19:00.239 this has become an international incident because they've buried all 344 00:19:00.280 --> 00:19:05.400 of these people together in the mass grave. Then that 345 00:19:05.560 --> 00:19:10.679 really occurred to me, how really terrible that was, that 346 00:19:10.760 --> 00:19:15.880 they were just demeaning these people because they weren't us 347 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:19.640 by leaving their name off. I finally came to see 348 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:20.840 what an insult it was. 349 00:19:23.440 --> 00:19:26.120 Tim also felt like the twenty eight people who died 350 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:29.520 that day were not treated humanly or equal to the 351 00:19:29.520 --> 00:19:32.080 families of the American passengers. 352 00:19:31.760 --> 00:19:34.679 So he wanted to right that wrong. Tim felt that 353 00:19:34.720 --> 00:19:38.040 these brascados were sort of invisible in life and then 354 00:19:38.080 --> 00:19:40.359 in death they weren't even given a name. 355 00:19:41.840 --> 00:19:43.920 And some big dream I might have in the future, 356 00:19:44.359 --> 00:19:46.320 maybe put us some kind of a headstone marker with 357 00:19:46.359 --> 00:19:47.080 their names on it. 358 00:19:47.600 --> 00:19:50.240 So first he went to the cemetery in Fresno where 359 00:19:50.240 --> 00:19:52.879 the mass grave is. He wanted to see the plot, 360 00:19:53.400 --> 00:19:56.800 so we asked Carlos Rascone, the cemetery director, to show him. 361 00:19:57.000 --> 00:19:59.760 After they walked over and saw the tiny plaque and 362 00:19:59.800 --> 00:20:02.440 the the act of the cemetery that read twenty eight 363 00:20:02.520 --> 00:20:06.560 Mexican citizens, Tim asked Carlos to see the cemetery's ledger 364 00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:10.000 of names. Surely the cemetery would have a record of 365 00:20:10.040 --> 00:20:11.760 who was buried there, right, But. 366 00:20:12.040 --> 00:20:14.600 When Carlos pulled it out of the archives. 367 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:17.800 So it just said on Mexican nationals twenty eight times. 368 00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:25.440 At this point, Carlos also wanted to find their names. 369 00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:28.240 He wanted to know who was buried in his cemetery. 370 00:20:28.760 --> 00:20:31.560 So Carlos joined Tim on his search, which led them 371 00:20:31.560 --> 00:20:34.400 to one more place, the Hall of Records in Fresno. 372 00:20:34.760 --> 00:20:38.119 That's the place that keeps all birth and death certificates. 373 00:20:37.520 --> 00:20:40.720 And it was there that they were finally able to 374 00:20:40.760 --> 00:20:42.560 get a list of names. 375 00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:47.880 But they quickly realized that list was unreliable. In Mexico, 376 00:20:48.119 --> 00:20:51.040 you usually have two last names, you're a maternal last 377 00:20:51.080 --> 00:20:53.479 name and paternal last name, and so many of them 378 00:20:53.520 --> 00:20:55.840 were treated as first names. There was somebody with the 379 00:20:55.920 --> 00:20:59.240 last name Lada that was turning to a woman named Laura, 380 00:20:59.600 --> 00:21:02.120 and many of the names in Spanish were turned into 381 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:03.200 Italian names. 382 00:21:03.480 --> 00:21:05.440 So they knew right away this list was botched. 383 00:21:05.640 --> 00:21:08.320 The fact that there were misspelled it kind of maybe 384 00:21:08.359 --> 00:21:10.800 shows a little bit of who might have been behind 385 00:21:10.840 --> 00:21:12.560 the pin or the books. 386 00:21:12.800 --> 00:21:16.320 Sure enough, there had always been a list with the names, 387 00:21:16.840 --> 00:21:19.400 but why didn't it make it to the cemetery. 388 00:21:19.520 --> 00:21:22.160 I would think that It's just it was a very 389 00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:23.879 sad oversight, I would say. 390 00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:27.480 So there they were with an actual list of names 391 00:21:27.560 --> 00:21:30.240 in their hands for the first time, and it was wrong. 392 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:36.520 But then Carlos remembered that every November, on the day 393 00:21:36.560 --> 00:21:40.239 of the dead, someone came by to leave flowers at 394 00:21:40.280 --> 00:21:44.719 the mass grave. Someone was visiting a loved one. This 395 00:21:44.920 --> 00:21:48.720 was Tim's first real clue that these people were not 396 00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:49.840 totally forgotten. 397 00:21:50.280 --> 00:21:53.439 He wanted to find who that person was, so Tim 398 00:21:53.480 --> 00:21:55.800 put out a call on the local paper in Fresno 399 00:21:56.080 --> 00:21:59.080 that said, if you or someone you know is related 400 00:21:59.119 --> 00:22:01.960 to any of the two twenty eight Mexican passengers who 401 00:22:02.040 --> 00:22:05.879