WEBVTT - Darién Gap: One Year Later | Part Two: To Be Called By No Name 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:02.840 Al Zone Media. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.080 I conducted interviews for this series in Spanish and French. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:10.800 Then I transcribed them and translated them, and we had 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.000 voice actors read them. So when you're listening to this, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.720 please remember that everything you're hearing in English has recorded 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.799 another language, and it's through the lens of my translation 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.680 that you're hearing these people's words. As we always do, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.439 we have included the sources for this podcast in the 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:27.960 show notes. I've also included a link to prim Ross 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:30.160 Legal aid fundraiser. People would like to help out. 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:37.240 The Deep Party. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.480 Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted. 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.199 Our work contracts are and we have to move on 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:54.920 six hundred and miles to that Mexico bardier. They chase 0:00:55.040 --> 0:01:01.920 us like our laws and rustlers like these. Goodbye by 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:08.320 Roslina Nissr, San Maria. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:10.640 You all have a name. 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:12.959 When you ride a beggar. 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:16.280 And all I will call you will. 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:17.399 Be the party. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.640 On the twenty eighth day of January nineteen forty eight, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.400 a plane took off from Oakland, California. On board with 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.479 a crew, an Immigration Nationalization Service officer, and twenty eight 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.560 people who had come to the US to work in 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.800 the Brasero program. They were being sent to Well CenTra, 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.200 where they were to be deported to Mexico. The pilot, 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.600 Frankie Atkinson, had found a job flying DC three's as 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.640 a civilian after flying the legendarily dangerous Hump route between 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.240 India and China in the Second World War. His wife, Bobby, 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.240 herself the daughter of a migrant mother, was filling in 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.480 that day as the usual flight attendants weren't available on 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.840 board with twenty eight passengers, all headed back to Mexico 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.120 after United States, where they come to work, had decided 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.280 it didn't need or want them any longer. The plane 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.840 never landed in El Center. It was overdue for maintenance, 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.080 and its left engine caught fire. Then its wing ripped 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.919 off above Colinger, not so far from the fields where 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.920 many of them had worked for year after year. The 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.560 passengers were pulled out of the plane into the sky. 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.600 Most of them had never flown before. They must have 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:31.920 been nervous before they took off, and now the worst 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.120 fears were coming true. And those who survived the loss 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.120 of pressure and being ripped from the cabin, in some 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:40.840 cases still strapped to their seats must have had their 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.760 very worse fears confirmed as they plummeted toward the ground 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.480 that had only stopped being part of Mexico one hundred 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:47.799 years and four days before. 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:50.240 Their bodies or. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.560 Parts of them were scattered through the canyon as the 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.359 plane slammed into the ground. There weren't enough seats for 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.320 all the passengers, and so three of them were to 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.160 sit on their luggage at the back. The plane was 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.440 over its maximum wake capacity, and that might have been 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.640 why the white smoke began pouring out of its left 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.800 engine over Colinger Frankie, the pilot had survived crashes in 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.400 this time of the Air Force, so hopefully he was 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:17.760 able to keep his pastures and crew calm until the 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.919 engine burst into flame. Some witnesses reported seeing people jump 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.360 from the plane after its left wing tore off and 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.160 began to plummet towards the ground, but it's just as 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.240 likely that they were pulled out. The plane hit the 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.560 ground about a mile east of Fresno County Industrial Road 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.880 camp or incarcerated people were being forced to work. In 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.560 Mates were immediately dispatched to comb the hills through remains 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.760 of people aboard the plane. Locals like Red Shoulders his rins. 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.800 A plane crashed on rushed up there to join them, 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.839 and they hoped to help the survivors. On finding none, 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.240 they began to fight the fire. Around the wreckage, prisoners 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:01.680 found luggage, women's shoes, and babies, clothes, them bodies, some 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.400 of them still in their seats, littered throughout the canyon. 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.360 Only sixteen sets of remained, whoever identified, including the entire 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:14.600 crew in the irons. Guard Bobby, identified by her engagement ring, 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.880 was pregnant at the time. She was buried with Frankie 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.480 in New York. Frankie's co pilot, Martin Ewing, was buried 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.080 with military honors. Frank Chaffin, the I S Agent, was 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.240 buried back in Berkeley. The remains of the twenty eight deportees, 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.520 or whatever had been found of them, were buried on 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:36.479 mass in Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno. Hundreds of local 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.359 Latino people, most of whom didn't know them, turned up 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.799 towards to twenty eight coffins, some of which were empty, 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.479 be interred in the eighty four for a hole in 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.520 the ground that was reserved for them. The hole was 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:53.160 covered with dirt and eventually with grass, and there they 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.920 remained without names, without their families being told for three 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.440 quarters of a century. The next day, The New York 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.120 Times reported on the story the worst aviation accident in 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:10.520 California history. The names, ages, and hometowns of the crew 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:15.040 and the ions agent were given, along with quote twenty 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:20.520 eight Mexican agricultural workers. Their lives apparently were unremarkable, and 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.120 even in death, they didn't deserve the dignity of being 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:27.040 mentioned by name. Like people, It's a story that, eighty 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:31.360 years later, is only too familiar. The song we upened 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.480 this episode with was written by an American anti fascist 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.040 folk musician named Woody Guthrie. Like many of his songs, 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.680 it's a protest song. It recalls the plane wreck. There's 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.080 one home recording of him singing it to a tune 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:46.080 that isn't used to sing a song today. It was 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.320 only uncovered a few months ago. Guthrie has moved to 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.560 write it when he noticed that in the reporting on 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.359 the crash none of them migrants who were being deported 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:56.920 on the plane were named. He wrote the song as 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.280 a poem because at a time his Huntington's career had 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.679 made it hard for him to sing and strum the guitar. Later, 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:06.799 a student of Colorado, a and m named Marty Hoffman 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.960 set the poem to a Mexican ranchera melody. It didn't 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.120 become popular as a song until Guthrie's friend Pete Seger 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.160 began performing get at concerts. Hoffman had played it to 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:21.680 him when Sega had visited the campus Ballad club. Guthrie, 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.480 whose guitar famously carried the slogan this machine Kills Fascists, 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:27.600 was in declining health by the time he wrote the 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:30.080 poem in nineteen forty eight, and he never lived to 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.680 hear it sung. Hoffman, who died by suicide in Red Rock, Arizona, 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.880 where he was teaching on the Navajo Reservation, died right 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:41.839 as Joan Bayez was recording the song in the studio. Today, 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.760 it's one of Guthrie's best known works, of course, when 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:47.919 he wrote the song to his discuss, Guthrie didn't know 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.719 the names of the people on the plane. He imagined 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:55.080 them in his poem as Juan Maria Rosalita, the sort 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.240 of people he might meet on any given day as 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.320 a touring musician who was finally received by working people 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:01.039 wherever he went. 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.520 I know one a Maria and a. 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.159 Rose from the Darien Gap I've also searched in the 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.560 hills and the mountains the remains of people whose names 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.240 I don't know eighty years later, So the song resonates 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:14.480 with me. 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.360 My father's own father. He waited that river. 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.000 Other before him have done just the same. 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.400 They died in the hills, and they've died in the 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:35.480 valley somewhere to heaven without any name. 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.480 Goodbye to my one. Good I rose a leader. 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.400 Body use me, I mean zusibody else. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:49.320 You won't have a name. 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.880 When you ride the big airfay Ah, they will call 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:54.920 you will. 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.240 Leader before me. 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.160 The twenty five men and three women aboard came to 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.680 the US to fill labor shortages after World War Two 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.520 as a result of an agreement between the two states 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:12.400 called the Brassero Program. The Mexican government didn't want to 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.360 lose its whole agricultural workforce and wanted to ensure that 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:17.400 workers in the US would send a portion of their 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.440 wages home, so it held these wages in accounts, which 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.320 some of them never saw again for years. The Mexican 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.800 government refused to extend the program to Texas because of 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:30.840 racist violencer. People who entered the program waited months, and 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.640 when they crossed the border, they were subject to abusive searches, 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:38.840 spraying with DDT and in some places zyclon B, same 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.520 gas used in the gas chambers the Holocaust was used 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.840 to hose down their clothes. When they got to the US, 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.200 many of them worked in very poor conditions. Many chose 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.000 not to wait and instead crossed without papers. Some farmers 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.760 hired them for much less than the minimum Bressero program 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.520 wage and put them to work in worse conditions than 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.439 the program permitted. Others work their alloted contracts in the program, 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.000 and they stayed, hoping to make a better life in 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.520 the USA or to earn some money they could keep 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:10.560 before they went home. Many of them came and went 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.760 several times returning home until them need to make more 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.920 money overwhelmed the desire to remain and work their aheedroes 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:21.000 or parcels across Mexico. The Mexican government wanted those to 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.680 travel without a contract to be barred from being hired, 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.840 and in many case government officials in Mexico accepted bribes 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.800 to allow worker to enter the program. Just as it 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:35.520 is today, everyone made money apart from the migrants. Barsserro's 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.120 letters were censored to prevent them asking their families to 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.319 join them, but nonetheless, a racist panic about undocumented migration began, 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.360 especially after Frankie and thousands of others return from the 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.439 war and the manpower shortage was not so acute. This, 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.360 combined with demands from the Mexican government, led to Eisenhower 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.520 eventually adopting a program whose name is a slur to catch, detain, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.240 and deport Mexican people to parts of their birth country 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.559 they'd never been to, far from the border, far from 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.680 their families and communities. The operation, which focused on rapid 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:10.680 deportations and border regions, is often cited as an inspiration 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:15.199 for today's border ratio. Seventy six years after Guthrie wrote 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:17.640 his song, very little has changed in the way the 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.560 legacy media covers migration. Maybe that's why everyone from Dolly 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.280 Parton to Bob Dylan, Chris Christofferson, will and Jennings, Johnny Cash, 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.520 Willie Nelson, and Bruce Springsteen a sung a version of 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.680 this song. Here's Johnny Cash describing the song before a 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:32.599 TV performance. 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.719 Johnny Cash, I understand this is a true story. This 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.559 from the our album The Highwayman. Johonna Rodriguez was on 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.840 that album as well. On this song, you understand it 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:43.599 is a true story what it got He wrote this 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:48.360 about a plane crash, and was it Los Gatos Canyon 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.040 taken a planeload of Mexicans back after they worked for 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.160 whatever they could get in this country. It's one of 0:10:55.200 --> 0:11:00.400 those old stories about Maltreed, man of Aliens. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:01.360 One of those old stories. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.560 He says, it seems so hopeful in nineteen eighty seven, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.160 like we wouldn't be writing anymore because most people could 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.720 accept that nobody should treat other people like that anyway. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.120 That was before country music was entirely dominated by boot liquors. 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.680 And here I am playing it to you again, eighty 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.680 years after it was written, because it is still relevant. 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:23.800 Here's Dolly Parton singing it. 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.520 My father's own father. 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:29.760 He waited that room. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.040 They took all the money. 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.720 He made it his life. 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:44.800 My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees. 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:50.720 They rolled the truck too. They took down and down. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:12:01.840 The airplane caught fire over Lascattos Kenyon, a fireball of 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:12.360 lightning that shook all who These dear friends are scattered 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:23.400 like drives. The RADIOSI they were just departy. Good night 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.679 to mind good bye. 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:36.440 I, as a song puts it. The bodies of the 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.240 workers were scattered like dry leaves across Los Gatos Canyon. 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.640 The bodies of those twenty eight people, the parts that 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.079 were recovered, were buried in a mass grave at the 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:49.040 Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, mark later thanks to a 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.760 donation with a small plaque calling the Mexican nationals, although 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.959 one of them was also Spanish. The hard work of 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.440 finding these people's names was taken up by people not 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.160 even alive when that plane crashed. Many of their relatives 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.959 did not even know they were buried there until Carlos Rascon, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.720 the Fresno Diocese director of Cemeteries, and Tim Hernandez, an 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:14.280 author and professor at UTL Paso, dedicated themselves to naming them. 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:17.080 In twenty thirteen, a new headzone was directed with their 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:21.720 names in the ceremony, which packed the cemetery. Hernandez had 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.839 found after years of hard work, by locating one of 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.520 their nephews a copy of El Faro, a local Spanish 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.920 language newspaper, which provided a list that was more accurate 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.240 than that in the Fresno County Records Department. It wasn't 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.960 until September twenty eighth of twenty twenty four, when I 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:42.160 just left Primrose and Kimberly and LaaS Blancas that a 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.560 proper memorial was built for them in the Canyon. Families 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.760 traveled from across the US and Mexico to open the memorial. 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.480 Some of them were funded by Woody Guthrie's grandchildren. The 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.560 names of all twenty eight of them were included. They 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:04.319 were Miguel Negrette, Alvarez, Cisco, Jamas, Turan, Santiago Garcia, Elisondo, 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:13.960 Rosalio Padia, Estrada, Vernabe, Lopez, Garcia, Ramon Perees Gonzalez, Tomas 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:25.920 Avigna de Garcia, Salvador Sandoval, Ernandez, Gui, Lupe Ramerez, Lara, Severo, Medina, Lara, Elias, Trujillo, Massias, 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:36.320 Jose Rodriguez, Massias, Tomas Padia, Marquez, Luis Lopez, Merdina, Manuel Caldern, Marino, 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:46.480 Luis Queves, Miranda, Martin, Razo, Navarro, Ignacio Perez, Navarro, Roman, Ochoa, Ochoa, 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:55.840 Apollonio Ramirez, Placentia, Alberto Carlos Regosa, Gjui, Lupe Ernandez, Rodriguez, 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:04.600 Maria Santana Rodriguez, Juan Valenzuela Ruiz, when Ceslao Flores Ruiz, 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:13.720 Josse Valdivia Sanchez, Jeesus Mesa, Santos Baldomero, Marcus Torres, Francis 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:22.120 c Atkinson, Lillian k Atkinson, Marion h Ewing, and Frank E. 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:36.040 Chaffin. Think about the song an Awful Lot. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:38.400 The first time I heard it was known a CD 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:43.080 compilation of Spanish anarchist songs. The fundamental decency of giving 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:46.360 the deceased name, treating them like people, not a human waste, 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.000 seems so basic, and yet three quarters of century later, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.440 reporting hasn't got any better. A few times in my 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.880 years of the border, I've searched with people and the 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.680 remains of people whose names I don't know, just as 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.320 some of my friends have arited little wooden crosses, some 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.160 with names and some without, to people who he never 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.280 got to meet, but somehow still grieve. There are lots 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.920 of people whose names and faces are Duno who never 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.440 made it to the USA. They didn't even get an 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.320 anonymous story. The people who die for the American Green 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.480 are totally ignored in the coverage of migration. The real 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:23.640 cost of our border externalization, little children and loving parents 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.480 who have to die so politicians VII the Party can 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.760 brag about secure borders are completely invisible to most people 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.520 in this country. Seventy seven years less, one week after 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.280 Times published its story which are raised and People killed 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.480 in the Los Gatos Canyon, it published a video. The 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.640 video shows Primros lying on the floor in agony. She 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.280 climbed the wall on the ladder and then fell into 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:51.200 the USA. On landing, she broke her leg. The story, 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.600 just like that story in nineteen forty eight, doesn't name 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.880 her or Kim. It refers to a group of migrants 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.920 and calls Primras one woman too fair. The piece did 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.840 interview other migrants, but as is often the case, and 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.919 migrants from Africa get the worst treatment of all. The 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.639 piece and the hundreds of other social media posted a 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:13.240 video from other outlets. Don't tell readers about the persecution 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:16.639 and torture. Primrose faced at home about the fact she 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:19.199 doesn't know what her father disappeared to and that her 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.560 whole family is in hiding. It doesn't bother to mention 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.040 that she and Kim walk for six months to get 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.560 to the border, that they were kidnapped, robbed and traumatized 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:32.639 on the way. Doesn't even give their names. Unlike the 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.400 people who died in Los Gatos Canyon, Primrose is here 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.200 to tell us how it feels to see her pain 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:41.480 turned into pai views by outlets with huge global platforms. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.640 Yeah, that's you to be honest. If you now, I'm 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:49.840 sure it's embarrassing me because when I was in Texas, 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:51.960 like if I made to people, they say, are you 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:54.399 not the one will feel done for me? It's like 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.240 something else because I was not a apie for the 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.440 person all put me in social media. Even even when 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.800 I go to the comments, some of the comments were 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.879 paid and the other people they don't even know what 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.760 was really happened to me. I was running for my life, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:20.600 but people they just comment whatever they want. So that 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.520 video even now, I'm not even happy. Is I know 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.280 people they make money with my video? Maybe you was 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.040 supposed the person who posted me was supposionately to close 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.359 my face or to do something. And a lot of 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.879 people they even don't know where I am. But because 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:45.240 of that video, it went viral. Even in my country. 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:51.240 People they were sending messages. That's why the other people 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:55.119 they went to my mom and studied torture DA because 0:18:56.040 --> 0:19:01.280 they taught me about me in country, but because of 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.679 that video, they went to disturb my mom. She's not 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:06.879 even where I grew up now in the door. She 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:11.960 just move. She's somewhere else now. So I don't even 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:17.159 know who posted the video, and I think I need to. 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:22.800 I don't know what can I say, but I'm very 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:27.080 angry with the person who posted the video. Maybe they 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.520 should maybe asking me, or to find me, or to 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.240 hide my face and the waste. Kimberly, she was theay 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.560 my daughter. When you ask her about the video, she 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.760 cries to be honest, just. 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.600 Like those people who died in the plane crash. Promotes 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:45.159 yourselves better. I first saw the video of her falling 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.120 on TikTok. I think I felt like it was shared 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:49.880 by the Wall Street Journal, but I haven't been able 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.159 to locate the post again. Where I saw a friend, 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.160 someone else saw a way to make it back. It's 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.240 a kind of extractive reporting that I spent my whole 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:01.159 career trying not to replicate. The Times and plenty of 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.240 other outlets have what they see as high standards of 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:07.000 journalistic objectivity. I don't think it will surprise anyone that 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.800 I fall afoul of those, which is fine. I don't 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.159 want to be trying to find the middle ground between 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.480 someone running for her life and someone trying to make 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.399 money from her misery. Nonetheless, we have to live in 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.560 a world where the vast majority of people get their 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.200 information from outlets who see migrants of stories and a 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.720 political issue, not as people. We have to live with 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:31.560 the consequences of that. We're seeing them all now every day. 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.560 This isn't a story about the New York Times. A 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:36.440 long time ago, I realized my career wasn't going in 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:37.960 the direction that was going to put me on the 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.040 mastthead of those big newspapers, because I care about people 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.960 like Primose and Kimberly and not about big newspapers. This 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.919 is a story about Primos and Kimberly, So let's hear 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:49.439 where they left. 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:50.280 Zimbabwe. 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:52.760 Zimbabwe, if you don't know, has been ruled by the 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:57.399 same party since nineteen eighty, the Zono PF. The ZONOPF 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.159 has been led for three decades with Robert Mugabi has 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.919 been the only party to hold the presidency since independence. 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.440 The opposite only changed hands once when mcgabay's former VP 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.480 replaced him after mcgaby resigned and a threat of impeachment 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:13.160 at a coup. The opposition has taking different forms over time, 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.600 but never managed to dislodge one party. When it has 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.480 got close, it has been met with extreme violence. So 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.200 I think Primerose knows only too well. 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:29.000 It's not like we just it's a luxury to come 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.800 to America for biggers. If I wanted to come to 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.320 America for bigger I would maybe go and apply for 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:41.440 the visa. But us is in youth is people who 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:45.680 wants to change our country. They don't even make you 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:47.800 to find a way to go to make a visa 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.840 because the Zimbabwe Zee a tough country, especially for US 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:58.440 young people, young generation. They can even kill you in Simbabwe. 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:02.360 We can't even protesting for our rights in Simbabwe because 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:07.640 we scared for the government is running the candruler which 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.320 is NPF. We are really scared. I ive people, a 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:17.400 lot of people lose a lot of friends. Kidney killed 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:24.080 me also in Zimbabwe. They even tortured me, wanted to 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:29.320 kill me. So that's why even I don't even know 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:34.439 he's Kimbally's father. Since twenty seven, I don't even know 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:36.840 where is maybe it's dead, is not even dead. I 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.679 don't even know where is because he also run away. 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.000 Even now is I'm speaking right now, I'm stressed, like 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.639 I don't even know it's my father. Yeah, I don't 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:52.080 even know where he is. Also just so our governments, 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:57.840 our Zimbabwe, it's a really tove for us. Yeah, they 0:22:57.880 --> 0:23:01.080 don't give us time or you don't give us. As 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:06.680 a young generation, they think themselves and then they are 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:11.040 they are families and the economy there's no even if 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.600 you go to school, there's no jobs. There's a lot 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:23.359 of graduates people staying home. They are vendors, hoodcasts, no jobs. Nothing. 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.160 If you want to stay in the in for your rights, 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:32.320 they tortured you, killed you, disappear. There's a lot of 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:37.760 people will disappear in Zimbabwe just because see your needs 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:39.360 to change. 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:45.760 And the Mugabe Zimbabwe experience rapid economic declient hyperinflation at 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.880 various times. Mcgaby has played with some form of colonial powers, 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:53.159 which is reasonable and they quote gay mafia, which is 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:54.879 what you get when you have a single manager of 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:57.800 state ruling by whim from the moment of liberation until. 0:23:57.600 --> 0:23:58.879 Just two years before his death. 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:02.200 Like many in her country, like many people from all 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:05.680 over the world, wanted a better future. It was something 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:09.080 she and her family had advocated for. Having seen people 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:12.639 she loved disappear, never knowing if they were alive or dead, 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:16.840 never even getting the closure of a funeral, she decided 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:19.920 she couldn't risk leaving Kimberly alone, and so she took 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:23.760 her daughter and fled. They fled to South Africa, but 0:24:23.880 --> 0:24:25.879 violence followed them there. 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:29.959 But especially in South Africa, people are killed with the sonophobia. 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:33.120 People are killed, you know, so it's not also even 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:36.960 safe for us to stay in South Africa. That's why, 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:41.919 especially in me, to be honest, de Jena was not 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:46.720 even planned. I was just asking people and when I 0:24:46.760 --> 0:24:49.600 reached Bras people, they were just talking lets gordless, godless. 0:24:49.600 --> 0:24:53.800 But I was also following those people. Do I get you? 0:24:54.800 --> 0:24:58.320 So it's not like we came here for Lajari or 0:24:58.359 --> 0:24:58.639 for what. 0:25:00.840 --> 0:25:01.119 For me. 0:25:01.200 --> 0:25:03.280