December 2, 2025 • 42 mins
In the second episode of a four part series, James talks about why Primrose left Zimbabwe and the way migrants are covered in legacy media.
Primrose’s Legal Aid Fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/immigration-lawyer-for-primrose
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/world/americas/trump-us-mexico-border.html
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/article299272524.html
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-orders/
http://www.toddmillerwriter.com/border-patrol-nation/
https://timzhernandez.com/all-they-will-call-you/
https://www.ice.gov/features/atd
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1225&num=0&edition=prelim
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I conducted interviews for this series in Spanish and French.
Then I transcribed them and translated them, and we had
voice actors read them. So when you're listening to this,
please remember that everything you're hearing in English has recorded
another language, and it's through the lens of my translation
that you're hearing these people's words. As we always do,
we have included the sources for this podcast in the
(00:25):
show notes. I've also included a link to prim Ross
Legal aid fundraiser. People would like to help out.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
The Deep Party.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted.
Our work contracts are and we have to move on
six hundred and miles to that Mexico bardier. They chase
us like our laws and rustlers like these. Goodbye by
(01:02):
Roslina Nissr, San Maria.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
You all have a name.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
When you ride a beggar.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And all I will call you will.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Be the party.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
On the twenty eighth day of January nineteen forty eight,
a plane took off from Oakland, California. On board with
a crew, an Immigration Nationalization Service officer, and twenty eight
people who had come to the US to work in
the Brasero program. They were being sent to Well CenTra,
where they were to be deported to Mexico. The pilot,
Frankie Atkinson, had found a job flying DC three's as
(01:44):
a civilian after flying the legendarily dangerous Hump route between
India and China in the Second World War. His wife, Bobby,
herself the daughter of a migrant mother, was filling in
that day as the usual flight attendants weren't available on
board with twenty eight passengers, all headed back to Mexico
after United States, where they come to work, had decided
(02:05):
it didn't need or want them any longer. The plane
never landed in El Center. It was overdue for maintenance,
and its left engine caught fire. Then its wing ripped
off above Colinger, not so far from the fields where
many of them had worked for year after year. The
passengers were pulled out of the plane into the sky.
(02:26):
Most of them had never flown before. They must have
been nervous before they took off, and now the worst
fears were coming true. And those who survived the loss
of pressure and being ripped from the cabin, in some
cases still strapped to their seats must have had their
very worse fears confirmed as they plummeted toward the ground
that had only stopped being part of Mexico one hundred
(02:46):
years and four days before.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
Their bodies or.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Parts of them were scattered through the canyon as the
plane slammed into the ground. There weren't enough seats for
all the passengers, and so three of them were to
sit on their luggage at the back. The plane was
over its maximum wake capacity, and that might have been
why the white smoke began pouring out of its left
engine over Colinger Frankie, the pilot had survived crashes in
(03:12):
this time of the Air Force, so hopefully he was
able to keep his pastures and crew calm until the
engine burst into flame. Some witnesses reported seeing people jump
from the plane after its left wing tore off and
began to plummet towards the ground, but it's just as
likely that they were pulled out. The plane hit the
ground about a mile east of Fresno County Industrial Road
(03:33):
camp or incarcerated people were being forced to work. In
Mates were immediately dispatched to comb the hills through remains
of people aboard the plane. Locals like Red Shoulders his rins.
A plane crashed on rushed up there to join them,
and they hoped to help the survivors. On finding none,
they began to fight the fire. Around the wreckage, prisoners
(03:56):
found luggage, women's shoes, and babies, clothes, them bodies, some
of them still in their seats, littered throughout the canyon.
Only sixteen sets of remained, whoever identified, including the entire
crew in the irons. Guard Bobby, identified by her engagement ring,
was pregnant at the time. She was buried with Frankie
(04:17):
in New York. Frankie's co pilot, Martin Ewing, was buried
with military honors. Frank Chaffin, the I S Agent, was
buried back in Berkeley. The remains of the twenty eight deportees,
or whatever had been found of them, were buried on
mass in Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno. Hundreds of local
Latino people, most of whom didn't know them, turned up
(04:40):
towards to twenty eight coffins, some of which were empty,
be interred in the eighty four for a hole in
the ground that was reserved for them. The hole was
covered with dirt and eventually with grass, and there they
remained without names, without their families being told for three
quarters of a century. The next day, The New York
(05:01):
Times reported on the story the worst aviation accident in
California history. The names, ages, and hometowns of the crew
and the ions agent were given, along with quote twenty
eight Mexican agricultural workers. Their lives apparently were unremarkable, and
even in death, they didn't deserve the dignity of being
(05:23):
mentioned by name. Like people, It's a story that, eighty
years later, is only too familiar. The song we upened
this episode with was written by an American anti fascist
folk musician named Woody Guthrie. Like many of his songs,
it's a protest song. It recalls the plane wreck. There's
one home recording of him singing it to a tune
(05:44):
that isn't used to sing a song today. It was
only uncovered a few months ago. Guthrie has moved to
write it when he noticed that in the reporting on
the crash none of them migrants who were being deported
on the plane were named. He wrote the song as
a poem because at a time his Huntington's career had
made it hard for him to sing and strum the guitar. Later,
a student of Colorado, a and m named Marty Hoffman
(06:07):
set the poem to a Mexican ranchera melody. It didn't
become popular as a song until Guthrie's friend Pete Seger
began performing get at concerts. Hoffman had played it to
him when Sega had visited the campus Ballad club. Guthrie,
whose guitar famously carried the slogan this machine Kills Fascists,
was in declining health by the time he wrote the
(06:27):
poem in nineteen forty eight, and he never lived to
hear it sung. Hoffman, who died by suicide in Red Rock, Arizona,
where he was teaching on the Navajo Reservation, died right
as Joan Bayez was recording the song in the studio. Today,
it's one of Guthrie's best known works, of course, when
he wrote the song to his discuss, Guthrie didn't know
(06:47):
the names of the people on the plane. He imagined
them in his poem as Juan Maria Rosalita, the sort
of people he might meet on any given day as
a touring musician who was finally received by working people
wherever he went.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
I know one a Maria and a.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Rose from the Darien Gap I've also searched in the
hills and the mountains the remains of people whose names
I don't know eighty years later, So the song resonates
with me.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
My father's own father. He waited that river.
Speaker 7 (07:21):
Other before him have done just the same.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
They died in the hills, and they've died in the
valley somewhere to heaven without any name.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Goodbye to my one. Good I rose a leader.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
Body use me, I mean zusibody else.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
You won't have a name.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
When you ride the big airfay Ah, they will call
you will.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Leader before me.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
The twenty five men and three women aboard came to
the US to fill labor shortages after World War Two
as a result of an agreement between the two states
called the Brassero Program. The Mexican government didn't want to
lose its whole agricultural workforce and wanted to ensure that
workers in the US would send a portion of their
wages home, so it held these wages in accounts, which
some of them never saw again for years. The Mexican
(08:23):
government refused to extend the program to Texas because of
racist violencer. People who entered the program waited months, and
when they crossed the border, they were subject to abusive searches,
spraying with DDT and in some places zyclon B, same
gas used in the gas chambers the Holocaust was used
to hose down their clothes. When they got to the US,
(08:45):
many of them worked in very poor conditions. Many chose
not to wait and instead crossed without papers. Some farmers
hired them for much less than the minimum Bressero program
wage and put them to work in worse conditions than
the program permitted. Others work their alloted contracts in the program,
and they stayed, hoping to make a better life in
the USA or to earn some money they could keep
(09:07):
before they went home. Many of them came and went
several times returning home until them need to make more
money overwhelmed the desire to remain and work their aheedroes
or parcels across Mexico. The Mexican government wanted those to
travel without a contract to be barred from being hired,
and in many case government officials in Mexico accepted bribes
(09:28):
to allow worker to enter the program. Just as it
is today, everyone made money apart from the migrants. Barsserro's
letters were censored to prevent them asking their families to
join them, but nonetheless, a racist panic about undocumented migration began,
especially after Frankie and thousands of others return from the
war and the manpower shortage was not so acute. This,
(09:48):
combined with demands from the Mexican government, led to Eisenhower
eventually adopting a program whose name is a slur to catch, detain,
and deport Mexican people to parts of their birth country
they'd never been to, far from the border, far from
their families and communities. The operation, which focused on rapid
deportations and border regions, is often cited as an inspiration
(10:10):
for today's border ratio. Seventy six years after Guthrie wrote
his song, very little has changed in the way the
legacy media covers migration. Maybe that's why everyone from Dolly
Parton to Bob Dylan, Chris Christofferson, will and Jennings, Johnny Cash,
Willie Nelson, and Bruce Springsteen a sung a version of
this song. Here's Johnny Cash describing the song before a
(10:31):
TV performance.
Speaker 7 (10:33):
Johnny Cash, I understand this is a true story. This
from the our album The Highwayman. Johonna Rodriguez was on
that album as well. On this song, you understand it
is a true story what it got He wrote this
about a plane crash, and was it Los Gatos Canyon
taken a planeload of Mexicans back after they worked for
whatever they could get in this country. It's one of
(10:55):
those old stories about Maltreed, man of Aliens.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
One of those old stories.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
He says, it seems so hopeful in nineteen eighty seven,
like we wouldn't be writing anymore because most people could
accept that nobody should treat other people like that anyway.
That was before country music was entirely dominated by boot liquors.
And here I am playing it to you again, eighty
years after it was written, because it is still relevant.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Here's Dolly Parton singing it.
Speaker 8 (11:24):
My father's own father.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
He waited that room.
Speaker 8 (11:30):
They took all the money.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
He made it his life.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
They rolled the truck too. They took down and down.
The airplane caught fire over Lascattos Kenyon, a fireball of
lightning that shook all who These dear friends are scattered
(12:13):
like drives. The RADIOSI they were just departy. Good night
to mind good bye.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I, as a song puts it. The bodies of the
workers were scattered like dry leaves across Los Gatos Canyon.
The bodies of those twenty eight people, the parts that
were recovered, were buried in a mass grave at the
Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, mark later thanks to a
donation with a small plaque calling the Mexican nationals, although
(12:52):
one of them was also Spanish. The hard work of
finding these people's names was taken up by people not
even alive when that plane crashed. Many of their relatives
did not even know they were buried there until Carlos Rascon,
the Fresno Diocese director of Cemeteries, and Tim Hernandez, an
author and professor at UTL Paso, dedicated themselves to naming them.
(13:14):
In twenty thirteen, a new headzone was directed with their
names in the ceremony, which packed the cemetery. Hernandez had
found after years of hard work, by locating one of
their nephews a copy of El Faro, a local Spanish
language newspaper, which provided a list that was more accurate
than that in the Fresno County Records Department. It wasn't
(13:35):
until September twenty eighth of twenty twenty four, when I
just left Primrose and Kimberly and LaaS Blancas that a
proper memorial was built for them in the Canyon. Families
traveled from across the US and Mexico to open the memorial.
Some of them were funded by Woody Guthrie's grandchildren. The
names of all twenty eight of them were included. They
(13:56):
were Miguel Negrette, Alvarez, Cisco, Jamas, Turan, Santiago Garcia, Elisondo,
Rosalio Padia, Estrada, Vernabe, Lopez, Garcia, Ramon Perees Gonzalez, Tomas
Avigna de Garcia, Salvador Sandoval, Ernandez, Gui, Lupe Ramerez, Lara, Severo, Medina, Lara, Elias, Trujillo, Massias,
(14:26):
Jose Rodriguez, Massias, Tomas Padia, Marquez, Luis Lopez, Merdina, Manuel Caldern, Marino,
Luis Queves, Miranda, Martin, Razo, Navarro, Ignacio Perez, Navarro, Roman, Ochoa, Ochoa,
(14:47):
Apollonio Ramirez, Placentia, Alberto Carlos Regosa, Gjui, Lupe Ernandez, Rodriguez,
Maria Santana Rodriguez, Juan Valenzuela Ruiz, when Ceslao Flores Ruiz,
Josse Valdivia Sanchez, Jeesus Mesa, Santos Baldomero, Marcus Torres, Francis
(15:14):
c Atkinson, Lillian k Atkinson, Marion h Ewing, and Frank E.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Chaffin. Think about the song an Awful Lot.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
The first time I heard it was known a CD
compilation of Spanish anarchist songs. The fundamental decency of giving
the deceased name, treating them like people, not a human waste,
seems so basic, and yet three quarters of century later,
reporting hasn't got any better. A few times in my
years of the border, I've searched with people and the
remains of people whose names I don't know, just as
(15:58):
some of my friends have arited little wooden crosses, some
with names and some without, to people who he never
got to meet, but somehow still grieve. There are lots
of people whose names and faces are Duno who never
made it to the USA. They didn't even get an
anonymous story. The people who die for the American Green
are totally ignored in the coverage of migration. The real
(16:19):
cost of our border externalization, little children and loving parents
who have to die so politicians VII the Party can
brag about secure borders are completely invisible to most people
in this country. Seventy seven years less, one week after
Times published its story which are raised and People killed
in the Los Gatos Canyon, it published a video. The
(16:40):
video shows Primros lying on the floor in agony. She
climbed the wall on the ladder and then fell into
the USA. On landing, she broke her leg. The story,
just like that story in nineteen forty eight, doesn't name
her or Kim. It refers to a group of migrants
and calls Primras one woman too fair. The piece did
(17:01):
interview other migrants, but as is often the case, and
migrants from Africa get the worst treatment of all. The
piece and the hundreds of other social media posted a
video from other outlets. Don't tell readers about the persecution
and torture. Primrose faced at home about the fact she
doesn't know what her father disappeared to and that her
whole family is in hiding. It doesn't bother to mention
(17:22):
that she and Kim walk for six months to get
to the border, that they were kidnapped, robbed and traumatized
on the way. Doesn't even give their names. Unlike the
people who died in Los Gatos Canyon, Primrose is here
to tell us how it feels to see her pain
turned into pai views by outlets with huge global platforms.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
Yeah, that's you to be honest. If you now, I'm
sure it's embarrassing me because when I was in Texas,
like if I made to people, they say, are you
not the one will feel done for me? It's like
something else because I was not a apie for the
person all put me in social media. Even even when
I go to the comments, some of the comments were
(18:04):
paid and the other people they don't even know what
was really happened to me. I was running for my life,
but people they just comment whatever they want. So that
video even now, I'm not even happy. Is I know
people they make money with my video? Maybe you was
(18:27):
supposed the person who posted me was supposionately to close
my face or to do something. And a lot of
people they even don't know where I am. But because
of that video, it went viral. Even in my country.
People they were sending messages. That's why the other people
(18:51):
they went to my mom and studied torture DA because
they taught me about me in country, but because of
that video, they went to disturb my mom. She's not
even where I grew up now in the door. She
just move. She's somewhere else now. So I don't even
(19:12):
know who posted the video, and I think I need to.
I don't know what can I say, but I'm very
angry with the person who posted the video. Maybe they
should maybe asking me, or to find me, or to
hide my face and the waste. Kimberly, she was theay
(19:32):
my daughter. When you ask her about the video, she
cries to be honest, just.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like those people who died in the plane crash. Promotes
yourselves better. I first saw the video of her falling
on TikTok. I think I felt like it was shared
by the Wall Street Journal, but I haven't been able
to locate the post again. Where I saw a friend,
someone else saw a way to make it back. It's
a kind of extractive reporting that I spent my whole
career trying not to replicate. The Times and plenty of
(20:01):
other outlets have what they see as high standards of
journalistic objectivity. I don't think it will surprise anyone that
I fall afoul of those, which is fine. I don't
want to be trying to find the middle ground between
someone running for her life and someone trying to make
money from her misery. Nonetheless, we have to live in
a world where the vast majority of people get their
information from outlets who see migrants of stories and a
(20:22):
political issue, not as people. We have to live with
the consequences of that. We're seeing them all now every day.
This isn't a story about the New York Times. A
long time ago, I realized my career wasn't going in
the direction that was going to put me on the
mastthead of those big newspapers, because I care about people
like Primose and Kimberly and not about big newspapers. This
(20:46):
is a story about Primos and Kimberly, So let's hear
where they left.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
Zimbabwe.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Zimbabwe, if you don't know, has been ruled by the
same party since nineteen eighty, the Zono PF. The ZONOPF
has been led for three decades with Robert Mugabi has
been the only party to hold the presidency since independence.
The opposite only changed hands once when mcgabay's former VP
replaced him after mcgaby resigned and a threat of impeachment
at a coup. The opposition has taking different forms over time,
(21:13):
but never managed to dislodge one party. When it has
got close, it has been met with extreme violence. So
I think Primerose knows only too well.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
It's not like we just it's a luxury to come
to America for biggers. If I wanted to come to
America for bigger I would maybe go and apply for
the visa. But us is in youth is people who
wants to change our country. They don't even make you
(21:45):
to find a way to go to make a visa
because the Zimbabwe Zee a tough country, especially for US
young people, young generation. They can even kill you in Simbabwe.
We can't even protesting for our rights in Simbabwe because
we scared for the government is running the candruler which
(22:07):
is NPF. We are really scared. I ive people, a
lot of people lose a lot of friends. Kidney killed
me also in Zimbabwe. They even tortured me, wanted to
kill me. So that's why even I don't even know
(22:29):
he's Kimbally's father. Since twenty seven, I don't even know
where is maybe it's dead, is not even dead. I
don't even know where is because he also run away.
Even now is I'm speaking right now, I'm stressed, like
I don't even know it's my father. Yeah, I don't
even know where he is. Also just so our governments,
(22:52):
our Zimbabwe, it's a really tove for us. Yeah, they
don't give us time or you don't give us. As
a young generation, they think themselves and then they are
they are families and the economy there's no even if
you go to school, there's no jobs. There's a lot
(23:14):
of graduates people staying home. They are vendors, hoodcasts, no jobs. Nothing.
If you want to stay in the in for your rights,
they tortured you, killed you, disappear. There's a lot of
people will disappear in Zimbabwe just because see your needs
(23:37):
to change.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
And the Mugabe Zimbabwe experience rapid economic declient hyperinflation at
various times. Mcgaby has played with some form of colonial powers,
which is reasonable and they quote gay mafia, which is
what you get when you have a single manager of
state ruling by whim from the moment of liberation until.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Just two years before his death.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Like many in her country, like many people from all
over the world, wanted a better future. It was something
she and her family had advocated for. Having seen people
she loved disappear, never knowing if they were alive or dead,
never even getting the closure of a funeral, she decided
she couldn't risk leaving Kimberly alone, and so she took
her daughter and fled. They fled to South Africa, but
(24:23):
violence followed them there.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
But especially in South Africa, people are killed with the sonophobia.
People are killed, you know, so it's not also even
safe for us to stay in South Africa. That's why,
especially in me, to be honest, de Jena was not
even planned. I was just asking people and when I
(24:46):
reached Bras people, they were just talking lets gordless, godless.
But I was also following those people. Do I get you?
So it's not like we came here for Lajari or
for what.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
For me.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
I just came here for my life. I just ran
for my life. I just need my life in my
daughter's life, because if I died today, I don't if
anybody can look after my daughter, especially when in my country,
because things are tough for my mom because my father
just disappeared.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
What people can't easily travel around the world. Concepts like xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, homophobia,
they're not just American issues, the global issues. And that's
why we say nobody's free until everybody's free.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
We just grew up in a poor family, so but
it's tough to be honest. It's a relative.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
For me.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
I'm not even one hundred percent, Okay, I'm still lots
of memories trace. Yeah, and I remember one of my friends,
the name was Memory. She died also, we went together,
died in Zimbabwe when they kidnaped us for five days.
(26:11):
So she just died. Listen to a twenty twenty twenty twenty.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
She just died.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Because we were fighting for our future.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, he's me talking to Primerse on that river bank
about but why she left South Africa.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
I'm just trying. No, it's only me and my daughter.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Was it hard to see a future for her there?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
It's very hard.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
Explain the situation there when.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Neil the situation where in where the situation for me,
it was tough. I just ran away to South Africa
and South Africa was not safe. Sosilophobia and uh, they
almost kill me and my boyfriend and even my my
(27:18):
big father was abusive too, my teprasive because of the
politics opposition party. So it was now even in South Africa,
I was not safe at all. It was those people.
They were like following me and my daughter. So I
(27:39):
spent three months on the road coming here. I leave
South Africa, I think fourth of July, till now I'm
in Panama. I'm still walking.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
That was September.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
She finally entered the USA in January, crossing into a
very different country than the one she'd set out for.
Her story is unique. Every migrant story is, but it's
not unusual. You spend as much time talk to migrants
as I do, you will learn a lot about the
hardships regular people face all over the world. You'll also
learn about the dreams people have and how little they
(28:24):
really differ. Let's take, for example, the protest we recently
saw in Nepal. Those didn't come as a huge shock
because I've met dozens of Nepalese political opposition members.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
Here's when I spoke to us.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
We sheltered in the porch of Nember our house in
Bahjiquito in a rainstorm last September. The little room was
filled with sleeping pads and tired bodies. I spent a
lot of time there sitting on the floor talking to people.
A newt story is one of many I heard just
in that one room, from all over the world.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Yeah, because it's not safe in my country. That's why
I want to go to the States, because there is
right and fredom.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Yeah, what makes it not safe.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
In your country? Yeah? There are many political reasons. Yeah,
and I am from a different political like call Congress, Okay,
I'm from Congress. That's a small member, not a big
too man, but opposition party. You know, they one they
(29:20):
won the constitution. So yeah, so they think you are Yeah, okay, if.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
You wandering how someone come from the mountains in Nepal
to a small village in the Panamanian jungle and to
be briefly sharing a tiny room with people from Venezuela, Cameroon, China,
and Bolivia, all seeking the same thing.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
His how I took a plan from Nepal to Dubai.
He said there two months, okay. Then after that I
went to Qatar. Yeah. From Qatar, I went to Brazil.
I stayed in Refusiician for at least two weeks. Then
(30:02):
after that I came out from Brazil, took a bus,
then traveled for two months, a long time, maybe twenty
four hours or twenty five hours. Wow. Then I went
to I caught up some friends. They took me to Bolivia.
(30:23):
We need to cross to Jungle. But it was small,
not a long way. Yeah, it was good. And after
Bolivia I took the ride to bus. I took at
least maybe forty eight hours.
Speaker 8 (30:39):
In a bus.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Yeah. Wow. Man. Then I went to the border of
Peru and there was some boat to take us across,
and I went across to Peru, stayed in a hotel
that night. Then after that it came out and again
rode the bus for twenty six hours to Lima. Then
(31:02):
after Lima again twenty six hours to Tulcan. Then after Tiltan,
I got a taxi and that taxi was to cross
the border to Ecuador. Okay, And so I went to
Ecuador in that taxi and they take us in hotel.
Stayed for three hours in the hotel. Then at night
(31:24):
again traveling wow. Then again traveled to Colombia. After Colombia,
rode another bus and rode to Colombia and Panama border.
Okay to Nicoli, Nicoli to Nicoli and we stayed maybe
(31:45):
one week in Nicoli. After that, I took a boat
to Kapurgana. From Kapurgana, uh, there was some bikes. The
pike took us to a camp at the border.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
We at the camp, I riased nearly at six pm.
Then after some people came there and they were responsible
to across the border to the Panama.
Speaker 8 (32:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Then we walked through at nine pm. We walked through.
Maybe we walked to till here forty four hours. Wow.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I asked a nuke what he had to say to
people in America because he had excellent English, I have
this platform to share. He was more than aware of
the US dis coursed around migrants, and he said he'd
been watching videos about it.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Well, thus everyone is human being. Yeah, yeah, because we
have some problems, so we need to leave our country, right.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
We need to be kind to each other.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, we need to be kind. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I haven't heard from a nuke since then. I have
no idea where he and his friends are or how
the journey across three continents ended. So many other migrants,
he disappeared for me in the massive humanity heading north.
I still think about all the people that haven't heard from.
Sometimes I'll see people who look like them and I'll
get excited. But if they're in the USA now, they're
(33:13):
probably afraid of going out much. They came all this way,
they risked their lives, they saw people die, and now
once again the hiding from men in masks with guns.
His Rose, young woman from Bolivia. Think about Rose a lot.
She was a young mum traveling alone, trying to find
a better future for her family and risking her life
in the process. She seemed young and happy most of
(33:36):
the time, but she had a sort of tiredness in
her eyes that really stayed with me after several conversations
we had in Bajjigito. I don't really know why. It
just seemed so sad that she was away from her kids,
and someone who so obviously was predisposed to joy looked
so tired and sad all on her own there. It
felt like her only chance had a better future. She
(33:57):
was very open about how hard it all was, but
one day I didn't feel like recording, just sitting on
the side of the raised walkway and Bahajiquito with her
feet in the hot, wet mud, watching people walk by,
talking with her like I talked with any other friend
about our owns and our families and the election that
was two months away. At that point, she was hanging
out with a group of venezuelansin but they must have
(34:19):
been separated because they've asked me about her since, just
like so many other people, I have no idea where
she is. It seems so sad to me that we've
made a word where a woman who wants a future
for our kids has to risk her life, maybe lose
it for all liner just to come here and ask
for help and then still be denied, and then if
she gets here, to be chased, harried and harassed.
Speaker 8 (34:45):
The situation there in Bolivia right now, we're practically economically well,
we're in very bad shape. It's kind of like Venezuela,
who motivates me to travel is more than anything work
because there you can't wor you can't earn enough. You know,
you have to work a lot, but they pay you
(35:06):
very little, you know, so there's a lot of a
lot of poverty. So that's what motivates me to keep
going to work in another country, to migrate, because I
also have a family, they have children, so that's what
motivates me to go to another country to work. It's
a future for them, yes, a better future for them,
(35:28):
for my children.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
I asked her to share her journey.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
How have been just to get this little wet village
that welcomes people in the middle of the jungle?
Speaker 8 (35:38):
Sal We left Friday morning to go to the jungle. Right, Well,
let me explain, honestly, it's not easy. It's very hard
because I've seen quite a few people. There are many
pregnant women, there are women with children. There are elderly people,
(35:59):
there are adults. There are people who come with crutches.
There are people who break bones if their feet fall
off the edge. There are people who faint. There are
quite a lot of people and have difficult situations because
you have to climb a hill which takes at least
eight hours. You have to climb. You have to carry
(36:23):
your backpack, your food, your clothes, your supplies, everything you
need for the journey, your water. So it's very hard,
very hard. And you go up up and you arrive
at what is the border of Panama with Columbia, which
(36:43):
is called the Flags. You get there and from there
you have to go down, down, down, that takes at
least another eight hours. You have to go down all day.
On Friday, it took us all day. We had to
sleep on the side on the edge of a river bank.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
More or less.
Speaker 8 (37:05):
There were about two hundred of us, if I'm not mistaken,
we are about two hundred people, one hundred and fifty
two hundred people traveling and sleeping there. We camped two
hundred of us. Yes, there are children. There are babies
two months old, one month old, three months old, one
(37:27):
year old. So there are children, and they are really
the ones who suffer the most on this journey. Yes,
So that night we slept. The next day, which would
be Saturday, we came back again at six in the morning.
We set off walking all day. We had to climb hills.
We had to cross rivers that come up to your shoulders,
(37:49):
up to your neck. They really come up. There are
quite a few rivers. There's mud, there are mountains. There
are those rocks that you slip, go and die. There
are mountains that you have to climb. Of course, if
you don't want to go meet God, you have to
climb mountains that are slippery with stones, rocks, And you
(38:11):
keep going like that all day downriver walking walking walking.
There are people who got left behind, There are people
who came with children. They get stuck, they faint right.
It's very hard, it's very difficult, and I know that
(38:33):
all of us who immigrated here are doing the same thing.
We are not bad people.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
We are good people.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
We do it for a purpose which is our family, right,
our children. We need a good economy to support our family,
our children.
Speaker 6 (38:53):
But I think I asked for if that was, and
kept her going.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
Yes, I have a dream to go there because just
like everyone else, like every person, I need to get
ahead financially to provide for my children, to get ahead.
So my dream has always been to be there. You know,
I set that goal for myself before, but I didn't
think it would be like this, so difficult, and once
(39:23):
you're in there, well there's nothing you can do but
get out, move forward, get out of there, because you
can't go back, you can't retreat. You have to get out.
So my dream is that to provide for my children.
I have two sons waiting for me, I have my
family and my dad, my brothers. So for that reason
(39:47):
we set off to go there. We are still going there.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
The American dream is such a nebulous concept. Often it's
used as a byword for exceptionalism and the idea that
you the US offers a true meritocracy where hard working
people can thrive in the marketplace of ideas that isn't true.
But dreams don't have to be true, not they have
to be that far fetched. Most people come into America
no that work hard in the fields, cleaning homes, or
(40:15):
maybe as a lion cook. The hands and knees and
backs will do the labor that allows for privileged Americans
to still believe in their version of the American dream,
the one where millionaires become billionaires. But the chance to
work and be paid to speak, and not fear consequences,
to be able to feed your kids enough they grow
up healthy and strong. Those are dreams too, the dreams
(40:37):
that people are willing to risk their lives for, and
dreams that I've seen them chase up and down mountains
in the jungle and in the freezing cold and the
baking heats of the deserts are mountains of California. But
now even those who achieve their humble dreams are in
danger of losing them. And tomorrow I want to talk
about the end of the American Dream and the beginning
of an American nightmare for millions and migrants who are
(40:58):
already here. Every time I heard the various versions that
Woody Guthrie song, I think about the friends that made
the jungle, who, as a song says, maybe went to
heaven without any names.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
So before I go, I want to share it whole.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Knowami's American Dream one more time, because I think it's
important not to forget what the entire force of the
most powerful state in the world has dedicated itself to destroying.
Speaker 8 (41:21):
Why am I.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Me me me me me Amia aa Emi Mia.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can now find sources for it Could Happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Al Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I conducted interviews for this series in Spanish and French.
Then I transcribed them and translated them, and we had
voice actors read them. So when you're listening to this,
please remember that everything you're hearing in English has recorded
another language, and it's through the lens of my translation
that you're hearing these people's words. As we always do,
we have included the sources for this podcast in the
(00:25):
show notes. I've also included a link to prim Ross
Legal aid fundraiser. People would like to help out.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
The Deep Party.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted.
Our work contracts are and we have to move on
six hundred and miles to that Mexico bardier. They chase
us like our laws and rustlers like these. Goodbye by
(01:02):
Roslina Nissr, San Maria.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
You all have a name.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
When you ride a beggar.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
And all I will call you will.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Be the party.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
On the twenty eighth day of January nineteen forty eight,
a plane took off from Oakland, California. On board with
a crew, an Immigration Nationalization Service officer, and twenty eight
people who had come to the US to work in
the Brasero program. They were being sent to Well CenTra,
where they were to be deported to Mexico. The pilot,
Frankie Atkinson, had found a job flying DC three's as
(01:44):
a civilian after flying the legendarily dangerous Hump route between
India and China in the Second World War. His wife, Bobby,
herself the daughter of a migrant mother, was filling in
that day as the usual flight attendants weren't available on
board with twenty eight passengers, all headed back to Mexico
after United States, where they come to work, had decided
(02:05):
it didn't need or want them any longer. The plane
never landed in El Center. It was overdue for maintenance,
and its left engine caught fire. Then its wing ripped
off above Colinger, not so far from the fields where
many of them had worked for year after year. The
passengers were pulled out of the plane into the sky.
(02:26):
Most of them had never flown before. They must have
been nervous before they took off, and now the worst
fears were coming true. And those who survived the loss
of pressure and being ripped from the cabin, in some
cases still strapped to their seats must have had their
very worse fears confirmed as they plummeted toward the ground
that had only stopped being part of Mexico one hundred
(02:46):
years and four days before.
Speaker 6 (02:48):
Their bodies or.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Parts of them were scattered through the canyon as the
plane slammed into the ground. There weren't enough seats for
all the passengers, and so three of them were to
sit on their luggage at the back. The plane was
over its maximum wake capacity, and that might have been
why the white smoke began pouring out of its left
engine over Colinger Frankie, the pilot had survived crashes in
(03:12):
this time of the Air Force, so hopefully he was
able to keep his pastures and crew calm until the
engine burst into flame. Some witnesses reported seeing people jump
from the plane after its left wing tore off and
began to plummet towards the ground, but it's just as
likely that they were pulled out. The plane hit the
ground about a mile east of Fresno County Industrial Road
(03:33):
camp or incarcerated people were being forced to work. In
Mates were immediately dispatched to comb the hills through remains
of people aboard the plane. Locals like Red Shoulders his rins.
A plane crashed on rushed up there to join them,
and they hoped to help the survivors. On finding none,
they began to fight the fire. Around the wreckage, prisoners
(03:56):
found luggage, women's shoes, and babies, clothes, them bodies, some
of them still in their seats, littered throughout the canyon.
Only sixteen sets of remained, whoever identified, including the entire
crew in the irons. Guard Bobby, identified by her engagement ring,
was pregnant at the time. She was buried with Frankie
(04:17):
in New York. Frankie's co pilot, Martin Ewing, was buried
with military honors. Frank Chaffin, the I S Agent, was
buried back in Berkeley. The remains of the twenty eight deportees,
or whatever had been found of them, were buried on
mass in Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno. Hundreds of local
Latino people, most of whom didn't know them, turned up
(04:40):
towards to twenty eight coffins, some of which were empty,
be interred in the eighty four for a hole in
the ground that was reserved for them. The hole was
covered with dirt and eventually with grass, and there they
remained without names, without their families being told for three
quarters of a century. The next day, The New York
(05:01):
Times reported on the story the worst aviation accident in
California history. The names, ages, and hometowns of the crew
and the ions agent were given, along with quote twenty
eight Mexican agricultural workers. Their lives apparently were unremarkable, and
even in death, they didn't deserve the dignity of being
(05:23):
mentioned by name. Like people, It's a story that, eighty
years later, is only too familiar. The song we upened
this episode with was written by an American anti fascist
folk musician named Woody Guthrie. Like many of his songs,
it's a protest song. It recalls the plane wreck. There's
one home recording of him singing it to a tune
(05:44):
that isn't used to sing a song today. It was
only uncovered a few months ago. Guthrie has moved to
write it when he noticed that in the reporting on
the crash none of them migrants who were being deported
on the plane were named. He wrote the song as
a poem because at a time his Huntington's career had
made it hard for him to sing and strum the guitar. Later,
a student of Colorado, a and m named Marty Hoffman
(06:07):
set the poem to a Mexican ranchera melody. It didn't
become popular as a song until Guthrie's friend Pete Seger
began performing get at concerts. Hoffman had played it to
him when Sega had visited the campus Ballad club. Guthrie,
whose guitar famously carried the slogan this machine Kills Fascists,
was in declining health by the time he wrote the
(06:27):
poem in nineteen forty eight, and he never lived to
hear it sung. Hoffman, who died by suicide in Red Rock, Arizona,
where he was teaching on the Navajo Reservation, died right
as Joan Bayez was recording the song in the studio. Today,
it's one of Guthrie's best known works, of course, when
he wrote the song to his discuss, Guthrie didn't know
(06:47):
the names of the people on the plane. He imagined
them in his poem as Juan Maria Rosalita, the sort
of people he might meet on any given day as
a touring musician who was finally received by working people
wherever he went.
Speaker 6 (07:02):
I know one a Maria and a.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Rose from the Darien Gap I've also searched in the
hills and the mountains the remains of people whose names
I don't know eighty years later, So the song resonates
with me.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
My father's own father. He waited that river.
Speaker 7 (07:21):
Other before him have done just the same.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
They died in the hills, and they've died in the
valley somewhere to heaven without any name.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Goodbye to my one. Good I rose a leader.
Speaker 8 (07:41):
Body use me, I mean zusibody else.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
You won't have a name.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
When you ride the big airfay Ah, they will call
you will.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Leader before me.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
The twenty five men and three women aboard came to
the US to fill labor shortages after World War Two
as a result of an agreement between the two states
called the Brassero Program. The Mexican government didn't want to
lose its whole agricultural workforce and wanted to ensure that
workers in the US would send a portion of their
wages home, so it held these wages in accounts, which
some of them never saw again for years. The Mexican
(08:23):
government refused to extend the program to Texas because of
racist violencer. People who entered the program waited months, and
when they crossed the border, they were subject to abusive searches,
spraying with DDT and in some places zyclon B, same
gas used in the gas chambers the Holocaust was used
to hose down their clothes. When they got to the US,
(08:45):
many of them worked in very poor conditions. Many chose
not to wait and instead crossed without papers. Some farmers
hired them for much less than the minimum Bressero program
wage and put them to work in worse conditions than
the program permitted. Others work their alloted contracts in the program,
and they stayed, hoping to make a better life in
the USA or to earn some money they could keep
(09:07):
before they went home. Many of them came and went
several times returning home until them need to make more
money overwhelmed the desire to remain and work their aheedroes
or parcels across Mexico. The Mexican government wanted those to
travel without a contract to be barred from being hired,
and in many case government officials in Mexico accepted bribes
(09:28):
to allow worker to enter the program. Just as it
is today, everyone made money apart from the migrants. Barsserro's
letters were censored to prevent them asking their families to
join them, but nonetheless, a racist panic about undocumented migration began,
especially after Frankie and thousands of others return from the
war and the manpower shortage was not so acute. This,
(09:48):
combined with demands from the Mexican government, led to Eisenhower
eventually adopting a program whose name is a slur to catch, detain,
and deport Mexican people to parts of their birth country
they'd never been to, far from the border, far from
their families and communities. The operation, which focused on rapid
deportations and border regions, is often cited as an inspiration
(10:10):
for today's border ratio. Seventy six years after Guthrie wrote
his song, very little has changed in the way the
legacy media covers migration. Maybe that's why everyone from Dolly
Parton to Bob Dylan, Chris Christofferson, will and Jennings, Johnny Cash,
Willie Nelson, and Bruce Springsteen a sung a version of
this song. Here's Johnny Cash describing the song before a
(10:31):
TV performance.
Speaker 7 (10:33):
Johnny Cash, I understand this is a true story. This
from the our album The Highwayman. Johonna Rodriguez was on
that album as well. On this song, you understand it
is a true story what it got He wrote this
about a plane crash, and was it Los Gatos Canyon
taken a planeload of Mexicans back after they worked for
whatever they could get in this country. It's one of
(10:55):
those old stories about Maltreed, man of Aliens.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
One of those old stories.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
He says, it seems so hopeful in nineteen eighty seven,
like we wouldn't be writing anymore because most people could
accept that nobody should treat other people like that anyway.
That was before country music was entirely dominated by boot liquors.
And here I am playing it to you again, eighty
years after it was written, because it is still relevant.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Here's Dolly Parton singing it.
Speaker 8 (11:24):
My father's own father.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
He waited that room.
Speaker 8 (11:30):
They took all the money.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
He made it his life.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees.
Speaker 8 (11:45):
They rolled the truck too. They took down and down.
The airplane caught fire over Lascattos Kenyon, a fireball of
lightning that shook all who These dear friends are scattered
(12:13):
like drives. The RADIOSI they were just departy. Good night
to mind good bye.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
I, as a song puts it. The bodies of the
workers were scattered like dry leaves across Los Gatos Canyon.
The bodies of those twenty eight people, the parts that
were recovered, were buried in a mass grave at the
Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, mark later thanks to a
donation with a small plaque calling the Mexican nationals, although
(12:52):
one of them was also Spanish. The hard work of
finding these people's names was taken up by people not
even alive when that plane crashed. Many of their relatives
did not even know they were buried there until Carlos Rascon,
the Fresno Diocese director of Cemeteries, and Tim Hernandez, an
author and professor at UTL Paso, dedicated themselves to naming them.
(13:14):
In twenty thirteen, a new headzone was directed with their
names in the ceremony, which packed the cemetery. Hernandez had
found after years of hard work, by locating one of
their nephews a copy of El Faro, a local Spanish
language newspaper, which provided a list that was more accurate
than that in the Fresno County Records Department. It wasn't
(13:35):
until September twenty eighth of twenty twenty four, when I
just left Primrose and Kimberly and LaaS Blancas that a
proper memorial was built for them in the Canyon. Families
traveled from across the US and Mexico to open the memorial.
Some of them were funded by Woody Guthrie's grandchildren. The
names of all twenty eight of them were included. They
(13:56):
were Miguel Negrette, Alvarez, Cisco, Jamas, Turan, Santiago Garcia, Elisondo,
Rosalio Padia, Estrada, Vernabe, Lopez, Garcia, Ramon Perees Gonzalez, Tomas
Avigna de Garcia, Salvador Sandoval, Ernandez, Gui, Lupe Ramerez, Lara, Severo, Medina, Lara, Elias, Trujillo, Massias,
(14:26):
Jose Rodriguez, Massias, Tomas Padia, Marquez, Luis Lopez, Merdina, Manuel Caldern, Marino,
Luis Queves, Miranda, Martin, Razo, Navarro, Ignacio Perez, Navarro, Roman, Ochoa, Ochoa,
(14:47):
Apollonio Ramirez, Placentia, Alberto Carlos Regosa, Gjui, Lupe Ernandez, Rodriguez,
Maria Santana Rodriguez, Juan Valenzuela Ruiz, when Ceslao Flores Ruiz,
Josse Valdivia Sanchez, Jeesus Mesa, Santos Baldomero, Marcus Torres, Francis
(15:14):
c Atkinson, Lillian k Atkinson, Marion h Ewing, and Frank E.
Speaker 6 (15:22):
Chaffin. Think about the song an Awful Lot.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
The first time I heard it was known a CD
compilation of Spanish anarchist songs. The fundamental decency of giving
the deceased name, treating them like people, not a human waste,
seems so basic, and yet three quarters of century later,
reporting hasn't got any better. A few times in my
years of the border, I've searched with people and the
remains of people whose names I don't know, just as
(15:58):
some of my friends have arited little wooden crosses, some
with names and some without, to people who he never
got to meet, but somehow still grieve. There are lots
of people whose names and faces are Duno who never
made it to the USA. They didn't even get an
anonymous story. The people who die for the American Green
are totally ignored in the coverage of migration. The real
(16:19):
cost of our border externalization, little children and loving parents
who have to die so politicians VII the Party can
brag about secure borders are completely invisible to most people
in this country. Seventy seven years less, one week after
Times published its story which are raised and People killed
in the Los Gatos Canyon, it published a video. The
(16:40):
video shows Primros lying on the floor in agony. She
climbed the wall on the ladder and then fell into
the USA. On landing, she broke her leg. The story,
just like that story in nineteen forty eight, doesn't name
her or Kim. It refers to a group of migrants
and calls Primras one woman too fair. The piece did
(17:01):
interview other migrants, but as is often the case, and
migrants from Africa get the worst treatment of all. The
piece and the hundreds of other social media posted a
video from other outlets. Don't tell readers about the persecution
and torture. Primrose faced at home about the fact she
doesn't know what her father disappeared to and that her
whole family is in hiding. It doesn't bother to mention
(17:22):
that she and Kim walk for six months to get
to the border, that they were kidnapped, robbed and traumatized
on the way. Doesn't even give their names. Unlike the
people who died in Los Gatos Canyon, Primrose is here
to tell us how it feels to see her pain
turned into pai views by outlets with huge global platforms.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
Yeah, that's you to be honest. If you now, I'm
sure it's embarrassing me because when I was in Texas,
like if I made to people, they say, are you
not the one will feel done for me? It's like
something else because I was not a apie for the
person all put me in social media. Even even when
I go to the comments, some of the comments were
(18:04):
paid and the other people they don't even know what
was really happened to me. I was running for my life,
but people they just comment whatever they want. So that
video even now, I'm not even happy. Is I know
people they make money with my video? Maybe you was
(18:27):
supposed the person who posted me was supposionately to close
my face or to do something. And a lot of
people they even don't know where I am. But because
of that video, it went viral. Even in my country.
People they were sending messages. That's why the other people
(18:51):
they went to my mom and studied torture DA because
they taught me about me in country, but because of
that video, they went to disturb my mom. She's not
even where I grew up now in the door. She
just move. She's somewhere else now. So I don't even
(19:12):
know who posted the video, and I think I need to.
I don't know what can I say, but I'm very
angry with the person who posted the video. Maybe they
should maybe asking me, or to find me, or to
hide my face and the waste. Kimberly, she was theay
(19:32):
my daughter. When you ask her about the video, she
cries to be honest, just.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Like those people who died in the plane crash. Promotes
yourselves better. I first saw the video of her falling
on TikTok. I think I felt like it was shared
by the Wall Street Journal, but I haven't been able
to locate the post again. Where I saw a friend,
someone else saw a way to make it back. It's
a kind of extractive reporting that I spent my whole
career trying not to replicate. The Times and plenty of
(20:01):
other outlets have what they see as high standards of
journalistic objectivity. I don't think it will surprise anyone that
I fall afoul of those, which is fine. I don't
want to be trying to find the middle ground between
someone running for her life and someone trying to make
money from her misery. Nonetheless, we have to live in
a world where the vast majority of people get their
information from outlets who see migrants of stories and a
(20:22):
political issue, not as people. We have to live with
the consequences of that. We're seeing them all now every day.
This isn't a story about the New York Times. A
long time ago, I realized my career wasn't going in
the direction that was going to put me on the
mastthead of those big newspapers, because I care about people
like Primose and Kimberly and not about big newspapers. This
(20:46):
is a story about Primos and Kimberly, So let's hear
where they left.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
Zimbabwe.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Zimbabwe, if you don't know, has been ruled by the
same party since nineteen eighty, the Zono PF. The ZONOPF
has been led for three decades with Robert Mugabi has
been the only party to hold the presidency since independence.
The opposite only changed hands once when mcgabay's former VP
replaced him after mcgaby resigned and a threat of impeachment
at a coup. The opposition has taking different forms over time,
(21:13):
but never managed to dislodge one party. When it has
got close, it has been met with extreme violence. So
I think Primerose knows only too well.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
It's not like we just it's a luxury to come
to America for biggers. If I wanted to come to
America for bigger I would maybe go and apply for
the visa. But us is in youth is people who
wants to change our country. They don't even make you
(21:45):
to find a way to go to make a visa
because the Zimbabwe Zee a tough country, especially for US
young people, young generation. They can even kill you in Simbabwe.
We can't even protesting for our rights in Simbabwe because
we scared for the government is running the candruler which
(22:07):
is NPF. We are really scared. I ive people, a
lot of people lose a lot of friends. Kidney killed
me also in Zimbabwe. They even tortured me, wanted to
kill me. So that's why even I don't even know
(22:29):
he's Kimbally's father. Since twenty seven, I don't even know
where is maybe it's dead, is not even dead. I
don't even know where is because he also run away.
Even now is I'm speaking right now, I'm stressed, like
I don't even know it's my father. Yeah, I don't
even know where he is. Also just so our governments,
(22:52):
our Zimbabwe, it's a really tove for us. Yeah, they
don't give us time or you don't give us. As
a young generation, they think themselves and then they are
they are families and the economy there's no even if
you go to school, there's no jobs. There's a lot
(23:14):
of graduates people staying home. They are vendors, hoodcasts, no jobs. Nothing.
If you want to stay in the in for your rights,
they tortured you, killed you, disappear. There's a lot of
people will disappear in Zimbabwe just because see your needs
(23:37):
to change.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
And the Mugabe Zimbabwe experience rapid economic declient hyperinflation at
various times. Mcgaby has played with some form of colonial powers,
which is reasonable and they quote gay mafia, which is
what you get when you have a single manager of
state ruling by whim from the moment of liberation until.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Just two years before his death.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Like many in her country, like many people from all
over the world, wanted a better future. It was something
she and her family had advocated for. Having seen people
she loved disappear, never knowing if they were alive or dead,
never even getting the closure of a funeral, she decided
she couldn't risk leaving Kimberly alone, and so she took
her daughter and fled. They fled to South Africa, but
(24:23):
violence followed them there.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
But especially in South Africa, people are killed with the sonophobia.
People are killed, you know, so it's not also even
safe for us to stay in South Africa. That's why,
especially in me, to be honest, de Jena was not
even planned. I was just asking people and when I
(24:46):
reached Bras people, they were just talking lets gordless, godless.
But I was also following those people. Do I get you?
So it's not like we came here for Lajari or
for what.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
For me.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
I just came here for my life. I just ran
for my life. I just need my life in my
daughter's life, because if I died today, I don't if
anybody can look after my daughter, especially when in my country,
because things are tough for my mom because my father
just disappeared.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
What people can't easily travel around the world. Concepts like xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, homophobia,
they're not just American issues, the global issues. And that's
why we say nobody's free until everybody's free.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
We just grew up in a poor family, so but
it's tough to be honest. It's a relative.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
For me.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
I'm not even one hundred percent, Okay, I'm still lots
of memories trace. Yeah, and I remember one of my friends,
the name was Memory. She died also, we went together,
died in Zimbabwe when they kidnaped us for five days.
(26:11):
So she just died. Listen to a twenty twenty twenty twenty.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
She just died.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Because we were fighting for our future.
Speaker 6 (26:26):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, he's me talking to Primerse on that river bank
about but why she left South Africa.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
I'm just trying. No, it's only me and my daughter.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Was it hard to see a future for her there?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
It's very hard.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
Explain the situation there when.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
Neil the situation where in where the situation for me,
it was tough. I just ran away to South Africa
and South Africa was not safe. Sosilophobia and uh, they
almost kill me and my boyfriend and even my my
(27:18):
big father was abusive too, my teprasive because of the
politics opposition party. So it was now even in South Africa,
I was not safe at all. It was those people.
They were like following me and my daughter. So I
(27:39):
spent three months on the road coming here. I leave
South Africa, I think fourth of July, till now I'm
in Panama. I'm still walking.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
That was September.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
She finally entered the USA in January, crossing into a
very different country than the one she'd set out for.
Her story is unique. Every migrant story is, but it's
not unusual. You spend as much time talk to migrants
as I do, you will learn a lot about the
hardships regular people face all over the world. You'll also
learn about the dreams people have and how little they
(28:24):
really differ. Let's take, for example, the protest we recently
saw in Nepal. Those didn't come as a huge shock
because I've met dozens of Nepalese political opposition members.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
Here's when I spoke to us.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
We sheltered in the porch of Nember our house in
Bahjiquito in a rainstorm last September. The little room was
filled with sleeping pads and tired bodies. I spent a
lot of time there sitting on the floor talking to people.
A newt story is one of many I heard just
in that one room, from all over the world.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Yeah, because it's not safe in my country. That's why
I want to go to the States, because there is
right and fredom.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Yeah, what makes it not safe.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
In your country? Yeah? There are many political reasons. Yeah,
and I am from a different political like call Congress, Okay,
I'm from Congress. That's a small member, not a big
too man, but opposition party. You know, they one they
(29:20):
won the constitution. So yeah, so they think you are Yeah, okay, if.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
You wandering how someone come from the mountains in Nepal
to a small village in the Panamanian jungle and to
be briefly sharing a tiny room with people from Venezuela, Cameroon, China,
and Bolivia, all seeking the same thing.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
His how I took a plan from Nepal to Dubai.
He said there two months, okay. Then after that I
went to Qatar. Yeah. From Qatar, I went to Brazil.
I stayed in Refusiician for at least two weeks. Then
(30:02):
after that I came out from Brazil, took a bus,
then traveled for two months, a long time, maybe twenty
four hours or twenty five hours. Wow. Then I went
to I caught up some friends. They took me to Bolivia.
(30:23):
We need to cross to Jungle. But it was small,
not a long way. Yeah, it was good. And after
Bolivia I took the ride to bus. I took at
least maybe forty eight hours.
Speaker 8 (30:39):
In a bus.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
Yeah. Wow. Man. Then I went to the border of
Peru and there was some boat to take us across,
and I went across to Peru, stayed in a hotel
that night. Then after that it came out and again
rode the bus for twenty six hours to Lima. Then
(31:02):
after Lima again twenty six hours to Tulcan. Then after Tiltan,
I got a taxi and that taxi was to cross
the border to Ecuador. Okay, And so I went to
Ecuador in that taxi and they take us in hotel.
Stayed for three hours in the hotel. Then at night
(31:24):
again traveling wow. Then again traveled to Colombia. After Colombia,
rode another bus and rode to Colombia and Panama border.
Okay to Nicoli, Nicoli to Nicoli and we stayed maybe
(31:45):
one week in Nicoli. After that, I took a boat
to Kapurgana. From Kapurgana, uh, there was some bikes. The
pike took us to a camp at the border.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (32:01):
We at the camp, I riased nearly at six pm.
Then after some people came there and they were responsible
to across the border to the Panama.
Speaker 8 (32:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Then we walked through at nine pm. We walked through.
Maybe we walked to till here forty four hours. Wow.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I asked a nuke what he had to say to
people in America because he had excellent English, I have
this platform to share. He was more than aware of
the US dis coursed around migrants, and he said he'd
been watching videos about it.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
Well, thus everyone is human being. Yeah, yeah, because we
have some problems, so we need to leave our country, right.
Speaker 7 (32:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:46):
We need to be kind to each other.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Yeah, we need to be kind. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I haven't heard from a nuke since then. I have
no idea where he and his friends are or how
the journey across three continents ended. So many other migrants,
he disappeared for me in the massive humanity heading north.
I still think about all the people that haven't heard from.
Sometimes I'll see people who look like them and I'll
get excited. But if they're in the USA now, they're
(33:13):
probably afraid of going out much. They came all this way,
they risked their lives, they saw people die, and now
once again the hiding from men in masks with guns.
His Rose, young woman from Bolivia. Think about Rose a lot.
She was a young mum traveling alone, trying to find
a better future for her family and risking her life
in the process. She seemed young and happy most of
(33:36):
the time, but she had a sort of tiredness in
her eyes that really stayed with me after several conversations
we had in Bajjigito. I don't really know why. It
just seemed so sad that she was away from her kids,
and someone who so obviously was predisposed to joy looked
so tired and sad all on her own there. It
felt like her only chance had a better future. She
(33:57):
was very open about how hard it all was, but
one day I didn't feel like recording, just sitting on
the side of the raised walkway and Bahajiquito with her
feet in the hot, wet mud, watching people walk by,
talking with her like I talked with any other friend
about our owns and our families and the election that
was two months away. At that point, she was hanging
out with a group of venezuelansin but they must have
(34:19):
been separated because they've asked me about her since, just
like so many other people, I have no idea where
she is. It seems so sad to me that we've
made a word where a woman who wants a future
for our kids has to risk her life, maybe lose
it for all liner just to come here and ask
for help and then still be denied, and then if
she gets here, to be chased, harried and harassed.
Speaker 8 (34:45):
The situation there in Bolivia right now, we're practically economically well,
we're in very bad shape. It's kind of like Venezuela,
who motivates me to travel is more than anything work
because there you can't wor you can't earn enough. You know,
you have to work a lot, but they pay you
(35:06):
very little, you know, so there's a lot of a
lot of poverty. So that's what motivates me to keep
going to work in another country, to migrate, because I
also have a family, they have children, so that's what
motivates me to go to another country to work. It's
a future for them, yes, a better future for them,
(35:28):
for my children.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
I asked her to share her journey.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
How have been just to get this little wet village
that welcomes people in the middle of the jungle?
Speaker 8 (35:38):
Sal We left Friday morning to go to the jungle. Right, Well,
let me explain, honestly, it's not easy. It's very hard
because I've seen quite a few people. There are many
pregnant women, there are women with children. There are elderly people,
(35:59):
there are adults. There are people who come with crutches.
There are people who break bones if their feet fall
off the edge. There are people who faint. There are
quite a lot of people and have difficult situations because
you have to climb a hill which takes at least
eight hours. You have to climb. You have to carry
(36:23):
your backpack, your food, your clothes, your supplies, everything you
need for the journey, your water. So it's very hard,
very hard. And you go up up and you arrive
at what is the border of Panama with Columbia, which
(36:43):
is called the Flags. You get there and from there
you have to go down, down, down, that takes at
least another eight hours. You have to go down all day.
On Friday, it took us all day. We had to
sleep on the side on the edge of a river bank.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
More or less.
Speaker 8 (37:05):
There were about two hundred of us, if I'm not mistaken,
we are about two hundred people, one hundred and fifty
two hundred people traveling and sleeping there. We camped two
hundred of us. Yes, there are children. There are babies
two months old, one month old, three months old, one
(37:27):
year old. So there are children, and they are really
the ones who suffer the most on this journey. Yes,
So that night we slept. The next day, which would
be Saturday, we came back again at six in the morning.
We set off walking all day. We had to climb hills.
We had to cross rivers that come up to your shoulders,
(37:49):
up to your neck. They really come up. There are
quite a few rivers. There's mud, there are mountains. There
are those rocks that you slip, go and die. There
are mountains that you have to climb. Of course, if
you don't want to go meet God, you have to
climb mountains that are slippery with stones, rocks, And you
(38:11):
keep going like that all day downriver walking walking walking.
There are people who got left behind, There are people
who came with children. They get stuck, they faint right.
It's very hard, it's very difficult, and I know that
(38:33):
all of us who immigrated here are doing the same thing.
We are not bad people.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
We are good people.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
We do it for a purpose which is our family, right,
our children. We need a good economy to support our family,
our children.
Speaker 6 (38:53):
But I think I asked for if that was, and
kept her going.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
Yes, I have a dream to go there because just
like everyone else, like every person, I need to get
ahead financially to provide for my children, to get ahead.
So my dream has always been to be there. You know,
I set that goal for myself before, but I didn't
think it would be like this, so difficult, and once
(39:23):
you're in there, well there's nothing you can do but
get out, move forward, get out of there, because you
can't go back, you can't retreat. You have to get out.
So my dream is that to provide for my children.
I have two sons waiting for me, I have my
family and my dad, my brothers. So for that reason
(39:47):
we set off to go there. We are still going there.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
The American dream is such a nebulous concept. Often it's
used as a byword for exceptionalism and the idea that
you the US offers a true meritocracy where hard working
people can thrive in the marketplace of ideas that isn't true.
But dreams don't have to be true, not they have
to be that far fetched. Most people come into America
no that work hard in the fields, cleaning homes, or
(40:15):
maybe as a lion cook. The hands and knees and
backs will do the labor that allows for privileged Americans
to still believe in their version of the American dream,
the one where millionaires become billionaires. But the chance to
work and be paid to speak, and not fear consequences,
to be able to feed your kids enough they grow
up healthy and strong. Those are dreams too, the dreams
(40:37):
that people are willing to risk their lives for, and
dreams that I've seen them chase up and down mountains
in the jungle and in the freezing cold and the
baking heats of the deserts are mountains of California. But
now even those who achieve their humble dreams are in
danger of losing them. And tomorrow I want to talk
about the end of the American Dream and the beginning
of an American nightmare for millions and migrants who are
(40:58):
already here. Every time I heard the various versions that
Woody Guthrie song, I think about the friends that made
the jungle, who, as a song says, maybe went to
heaven without any names.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
So before I go, I want to share it whole.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Knowami's American Dream one more time, because I think it's
important not to forget what the entire force of the
most powerful state in the world has dedicated itself to destroying.
Speaker 8 (41:21):
Why am I.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Me me me me me Amia aa Emi Mia.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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You can now find sources for it Could Happen here
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It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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