COALINGA, Calif. – A memorial was unveiled this weekend for victims of a Fresno County plane crash 76 years ago.
In 1948, a plane carrying 32 passengers flying from Oakland to Southern California caught fire after fuel leaked into its engine – causing it to crash in the Los Gatos Canyon, 20 miles west of Coalinga.
All those on board died in the wreckage. At the time, the crash was regarded as the worst mass casualty aircraft event in California history.
Twenty-eight of the passengers were Mexican farm laborers. Some were part of the bracero farmworker program, while others were undocumented immigrants being deported. The plane was on its way to a deportation center in Imperial County.
News reports at the time only printed the names of the pilot and crew members, omitting the names of the laborers, regarding them only as “deportees.”
The victims were buried in a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, noted by the Fresno Roman Catholic Diocese as “Mexican nationals.”
For nearly 70 years, the names of the laborers were forgotten – until author Tim Hernandez began piecing together the names of the victims and their stories.
Memorial brings ‘closure’ to families
Families for seven of the victims were able to attend the unveiling of the monument – traveling from all over the country.
Rosana Flores Santos traveled from Atlanta. She is the great-granddaughter of Jesús Santos Meza. Speaking for her family, Flores Santos spoke of the generational grief of not knowing where Santos Meza died or was laid to rest.
“After 76 years, my great grandfather not only has a name, but he has a family,” Flores Santos said.
When Jaime Ramírez arrived in the U.S. in 1989 from the Mexican state Guanajuato, he went searching for his great-grandfather Ramón Paredes González and great uncle Guadalupe Ramírez Lara. Somehow, his family had obtained one of the few Spanish-language newspapers that listed the full names of the laborers who died.
Ramírez went to the Fresno County Hall of Records, obtained the death certificates, and was able to visit their graves.
“Up until then, no one in my family knew [where they were buried],” said Ramírez, who now lives in Fresno.
Luis Carlos Estrada Andrade traveled to Los Gatos from Bakersfield. He’s from the Mexican state of Guadalajara. Growing up, his parents told him stories of his grandfather, Rosalío Estrada Padilla, but never knew how he died. When he came to the U.S., Estrada Andrade started his search.
“I saw an article online about the Los Gatos crash,” Estrada Andrade said in Spanish. “I saw another post asking if anyone had any connections to the people who died. My heart was pounding when I realized my grandfather was one of them.”
Now, Estrada Andrade says he’s at peace knowing his grandfather’s story is being told.
Residents from Los Gatos Canyon spoke about the lasting impact of the crash in their community.
“Our teachers, our young people are going to carry this story,” rancher Nancy Birdwell said. “To [the] families, I want you to know we remember, we care, and we're going to carry your story.”
Their stories live on in song and literature
Author Tim Z. Hernandez, a Central Valley native and a son of farmworkers, spearheaded the effort to identify the names of the crash victims.
Hernandez has spent more than a decade traveling across California and Mexico, collecting the stories of the people who were killed. Since starting his quest to find all the families, he’s made contact with 14.
Seven of the passengers’ stories are detailed in Hernandez’s book “All They Will Call You,” published in 2017.
In a new book titled “They Call You Back,” Hernandez details how the investigation into the lost lives conjured up questions about his own family’s generational trauma.
Before Hernandez’s books, the story of the Mexican laborers lived on in a folk song.
Singer Woody Guthrie was outraged that newspapers omitted the names of the laborers, only regarding them as “deportees.” He wrote a poem called "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)", giving symbolic names to the dead. The lyrics were later turned into melody by Martin Hoffman:
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita
Adios mis Amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"
Woody’s son Joady, his grandson Damon, and two of his great grandkids were in attendance at the memorial. The family had been a long supporter of the effort to name the lost victims – even sponsoring some families to travel to the site.
“[My grandfather] wanted so badly to speak up for the people who needed a little bit of speaking up for,’” said Damon Guthrie. “In writing ‘Deportees,’ he was trying to call attention to people so often ignored. The people who grow our good orchards and grow our good fruit. I bet he would have never guessed the sort of ceremony like this could have happened from a song that he inspired.”
“Over 70 years later, this country still has a lot to learn,” Guthrie added.
