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