{"id":1538,"date":"2026-06-30T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2026-06-30T07:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T12:49:09","slug":"%c2%a7-8-2-deportee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/06\/30\/%c2%a7-8-2-deportee\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a7\u00a08.2. Deportee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Is this the best way we can raise our good crops?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">To fall like dry leaves and rot on out topsoil<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">And be known by no names except \u201cdeportees\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:52px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Woodie Guthrie,&nbsp; <em>Deportee (Plane Crash at Los Gatos)<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:72px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On January 28, 1948 a DC-3 flying 32 people from the U.S. to Mexico, most of them braceros, crashed in the Diablo Range near Los Gatos creek west of the town of Coalinga in Southern California. All the crew and passengers died. Regardless of the employment status of the 28 passengers\u2014most of whom were braceros who worked legally in the United States\u2014initial reports of the news only gave the names of the pilot, co-pilot and stewardess (all of them U.S. citizens), while the names of Mexican citizens were omitted, collectively deemed as \u201cdeportees,\u201d and later buried in a mass grave in Fresno\u2019s cemetery in a grave marked \u201cMexican nationals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph translation-block\">The accident inspired folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie\u2014known for his guitar marked  with the legend \u201cthis machine kills fascists\u201d\u2014 to compose the poem <em>Deportee (Plane Crash at Los Gatos)<\/em>, which became a classic North American protest song and was later covered by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. In his poem, Guthrie denounces the dehumanization of his country\u2019s agricultural industry which, not content with poisoning surplus crops with creosote to raise prices, takes away all dignity from its workers by cutting out their names and the possibility of repatriating their remains. C\u00e9sar Estrada Ch\u00e1vez, Mexican-American union leader and co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, said that the media\u2019s treatment of the accident convinced him that farm workers \u201cshould be treated as important human beings and not as agricultural implements.\u201d As noted by Guthrie and Ch\u00e1vez, the dehumanization of the victims of the Los Gatos plane crash is intimately linked to the disappearance of the name as the mask of<em>bios<\/em> (<a href=\"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2025\/12\/22\/\u00a7-0-13-persona-mascara\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"180\" target=\"_self\">0.13<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/02\/20\/\u00a7-3-3-1-bertolucci-schneider-brando-o-la-violacion-con-mantequilla\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"670\" target=\"_self\">3.3.1<\/a>), which condemns these people to social invisibility (<a href=\"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/05\/27\/\u00a7-7-3-lenguas-no-reguladas\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1327\" target=\"_self\">7.3<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/2026\/06\/10\/\u00a7-7-15-guetos-negros-guetos-judios\/\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"1405\" target=\"_self\">7.15<\/a>) in death, and even while alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Only 65 years later, in September 2013, a monument was erected listing the names of the 28 Mexicans who died in the accident, along with the initials of the crew members. Name and Dignity are inseparable.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards? Is this the best way we can raise our good crops? To fall like dry leaves and rot on out topsoil And be known by no names except \u201cdeportees\u201d Woodie Guthrie,&nbsp; Deportee (Plane Crash at Los Gatos)&nbsp; El 28 de enero de 1948 un [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274836558,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[786109570],"tags":[786109586,786109585,786109584,786109583],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitulo-8","tag-bob-dylan","tag-cesar-estrada-chavez","tag-deportee-plane-crash-at-los-gatos","tag-woody-guthrie"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgYHfz-oO","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274836558"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1541,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions\/1541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/locusterribilis.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}