A few days ago I wrote a short piece about immigration reform and Woody Guthrie’s song Deportee, also known as Plane Wreck at Los Gatos. The song describes the death of 28 Mexican laborers in a plane crash at Los Gatos Canyon, California in 1948. The dehumanizing result that caused Guthrie to write the song was the mention of the four U. S. citizens by name while referring to the Mexican laborers only as deportees.
It took 65 years to learn the names of the dead and raise the $14,000, mostly in donations of $20 or less, for a marker to replace the previously nameless grave stone. On September 2, 2013 a brightly colored serape was lifted to reveal the new marker with all 28 names inscribed.
To get a flavor of those, until now, nameless “deportees”, here is a brief excerpt describing two of them:
Ramon Paredes used to sing love songs to his wife. His son remembers. Paredes had made enough money from his bracero contracts to buy a small farm in Charco de Pantoja in central Mexico, but he crossed illegally to the U.S. to buy corn seed to plant. He traveled with his best friend, Guadalupe Ramirez Lara, a tall man who was hoping to make money for an irrigation system for their village.
Here is the list of names. Please take just a moment to read each one so long forgotten, for 65 years known only as deportee.
The 28 Mexican citizens whose names were inscribed on the new memorial at their mass grave site at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery:
Miguel Negroros Alvarez
Francisco Llamas Duram
Santiago Garcia Elizondo
Rosalio Padilla Estrada
Tomasa Avena De Garcia
Bernabe Lopez Garcia
Salvador Sandoval Hernandez
Severo Medina Lara
Elias Trujillo Macias
Jose Rodriguez Macias
Tomas Padilla Marquez
Luis Lopez Medina
Manuel Calderon Merino
Luis Cuevas Miranda
Martin Razo Navarro
Ygnacio Perez Navarro
Roman Ochoa Ochoa
Ramon Ramirez Paredes
Apolonio Ramirez Placencia
Guadalupe Laura Ramirez
Alberto Carlos Raygoza
Guadalupe Hernandez Rodriguez
Maria Santana Rodriguez
Juan Valenzuela Ruiz
Wencealado Ruiz
Jose Valdivia Sanchez
Jesus Meza Santos
Baldomero Marcas Torres
Read more here with beautiful photos of the ceremony.
Contributor, aka tidbits. Retired attorney in complex litigation, death penalty defense and constitutional law. Former Nat’l Board Chair: Alzheimer’s Association. Served on multiple political campaigns, including two for U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR). Contributing author to three legal books and multiple legal publications.