History

All scattered like dry leaves…..

On January 28, 1948, a chartered immigration service plane crashed and burned in western Fresno County, killing twenty-eight Mexican deportees, the crew of three and an immigration guard. The chartered plane was southbound from the Oakland airport, when it crashed in view of some 100 road camp workers. The foreman stated that it “appeared to explode and a wing fell off” before it plummeted to the ground. A number of those in the plane appeared to jump or fall before the aircraft hit the ground. The wreckage was enveloped in flames when the fuel tanks ignited. Rescuers were not able to get near the plane until the fire died down. By then there was nothing to be done but extricate the bodies. The Mexicans were being flown to the deportation center at El Centro, California, for return to their country. The group included Mexican nationals who entered the United States illegally, and others who stayed beyond duration of work contracts in California. All were field workers. The pilot, co-pilot, stewardess, and the guard were identified. The immigrants were only called “deportees.”

The following song was originally written by Woody Guthrie in 1948, as a memorial to the nameless immigrants who died in this plane crash, “all scattered like dry leaves” in Los Gatos Canyon.

Chorus:
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria
You won’t have a name when you ride the big aeroplane
All they will call you will be deportees

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'nin
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps
They’re flying them back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again.

My father’s own father he waded the river
He took all the money he made in July
My brothers and sisters
Come work in the fruit fields
They rode in the trucks till they took them and died

Some of us are illegal, and some of us ain’t wanted
Our work contract’s out and we’ve got to move on
It’s six hundred miles to the Mexican border
They treat us like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts
We died in your valleys and died on your plains
We died  'neath your trees and we died in your bushes
Both sides of the river, we died just the same

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of lightning, it shook all our hills
Who are these friends all scattered like dry leaves
The radio said they’re just deportees

Is this the best way we can harvest our orchards
Is this the best way we can harvest our crops
To die like dry leaves and to rot on the topsoil
And be called by no name except, deportees

To read this, it seems like it happened yesterday, because immigrants who die in their quest to reach the United States are still treated like dry leaves to rot on the topsoil. There are thousands of similar stories.

To study the history, one needs to go back to 1848 when the military occupation of the southwest by the United States resulted in Mexico ceding half its territory by signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The United States soon realized southern Arizona had mines of copper. Through the Gadsen Purchase, in 1853,  the southern part of Arizona, Mesilla Valley, which had not been part of the treaty, was added to the United States’ dream of Manifest Destiny.  Since then, laws and economics have determined the push and pull factors of Mexican immigrants into the United States and back to Mexico, most often, through deportation or in the name of repatriation. Mexican immigrants, legal or not always get caught in the middle.

Were these people fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, or daughters? What continues driving them on a deadly journey to a place where they are needed for cheap labor but are not wanted and considered cargo or “pollos” by their smugglers and exploited by their employers. Most who take this journey make it over the border and work in sweatshops, dangerous meat packing plants, farm fields, orchards, or demeaning places citizens would not dare work.  According to the American Press (March 14, 2004), Mexican immigrants are at much greater risk of dying on the job than native and other foreign-born workers. Their workplace mortality rates have been higher than six deaths per 100,000 workers for five consecutive years. This is at a time when the workplace in the U. S.  grew safer overall. Most Mexican immigrants know the risks and they still keep coming. One has to look at the economics of Mexico and the global marketplace to start to understand this complex web.