Naming the ‘Just Deportees’ of the Central Valley Plane Crash, 75 Years Later

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Seventy-five years ago, a plane crashed outside of Coalinga in California’s Central Valley. Twenty-eight of the 32 passengers killed were migrant workers in the Bracero Program, being deported back to Mexico. Unlike the flight’s white passengers and crew, whose bodies were sent home to their families, the Mexican citizens were buried unceremoniously in a mass grave, their names omitted from the headstone. Tim Hernandez is working to identify their names, families and stories and he joins us to talk about the importance of remembering. Related link(s): 'All They Will Call You Will Be Deportee': 75 Years Later, Uncovering the Lives of the Braceros Who Died in a Fiery California Plane Crash, The California Report Magazine Guests: Tim Z. Hernandez, author, "All They Will Call You" Mireya Loza, associate professor of history, Georgetown University; author, "Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom" Michael Rodríguez III, ethnic studies teacher in Santa Ana and great-nephew of María Rodríguez Santana, victim of the plane crash Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:43.1	From KQBD in San Francisco, this is Forum. I'm Mina Kim. For the last 13 years, Tim Z.
1:05.6	Ernandez has been trying to learn the names and stories of 28 passengers killed in a Central Valley plane crash
1:12.1	in 1948.
1:13.7	They were migrant workers who came to the U.S. under the World War II Bracero program,
1:18.4	and they were being deported back to Mexico.
1:21.3	The remains of the white pilot, immigration official, and crew were identified and returned
1:25.8	to their families, but the remains of the Mexican
1:28.2	passengers were buried in a mass grave in Fresno. We'll find out what Hernandez was able to learn
1:33.5	about them and meet a relative of one of the passengers after this news.
1:48.4	I'm Mina Kim. Welcome to Forum.
1:53.9	A plane crash 75 years ago, outside Kowlinga in California Central Valley,
	...

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