Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (2:40)

Cool Zone Media.

Narrator / Host (2:42)

I conducted interviews for this series in Spanish and French. Then I transcribed them and translated them, and we had voice actors read them. So when you're listening to this, please remember that everything you're hearing in English was recorded in another language. And it's through the lens of my translation that you're hearing these people's words. As we always do, we have included the sources for this podcast in the show Notes. I've also included a link to Primrose's legal aid fundraiser. People will like to help out. Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted Our work contracts out and we have to move on 600 miles to that Mexico border They chase us like outlaws and rustlers like these Goodbye to my one Goodbye, Rosalina. Adios, mi amigos.

Jesus San Maria (3:45)

Jesus San Maria.

Narrator / Host (3:48)

You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane and all they.

Jesus San Maria (3:54)

Will call you will be deportee.

Narrator / Host (4:00)

On the 28th day of January, 1948, a plane took off from Oakland, California. On board were the crew, an Immigration Nationalization service officer and 28 people who had come to the US to work in the Bracero program. They were being sent to El Centro, where they were to be deported to Mexico. The pilot, Frankie Atkinson, had found a job flying DC3s as a civilian after flying the legendarily dangerous hump route between India and China in the Second World War. His wife, Bobby, herself the daughter of a migrant mother, was filling in that day as the usual flight attendants weren't available. On board were 28 passengers, all headed back to Mexico after the United States, where they come to work, had decided it didn't need or want them any longer. The plane never landed in El Centro. It was overdue for maintenance and its left engine caught fire. Then its wing ripped off. Above Kohlinga, not so far from the fields where many of them had worked for year after year, the passengers were pulled out of the plane and into the sky. Most of them had never flown before. They must have been nervous before they took off. Now their worst fears were coming true. And those who survived the loss of pressure and being ripped from the cabin, in some cases still strapped to their seats, must have had their very worst fears confirmed as they plummeted toward the ground that had only Stopped being part of Mexico 100 years and four days before their bodies or parts of them were scattered through the canyon. As the plane slammed into the ground, there weren't enough seats for all the passengers and so three of them were forced to sit on their luggage at the back. The plane was over its maximum weight capacity and that might have been why the white smoke began pouring out of its left engine over Coalinga. Frankie, the pilot, had survived crashes in his time in the Air Force, so hopefully he was able to keep his passengers and crew calm until the engine burst into flame. Some witnesses reported seeing people jump from the plane after its left wing tore off and began to plummet towards the ground. But it's just as likely that they were pulled out. The plane hit the ground about a mile east of Fresno County Industrial Road camp where incarcerated people were being forced to work. Inmates were immediately dispatched to comb the hills for remains of people aboard the plane. Locals like Red Childers, whose rancher plane crashed on, rushed up there to join them and they hoped to help the survivors. On finding none, they began to fight the fire. Around the wreckage, prisoners found luggage, women's shoes and babies, clothes, then bodies, some of them still in their seats, littered throughout the canyon. Only 16 sets of remains were ever identified, including the entire crew and the INS guard. Bobby, identified by her engagement ring, was pregnant at the time she was buried with Frankie in New York. Frankie's co pilot, Martin Ewing, was buried with military honours. Frank Chaffin, the INS agent, was buried back in Berkeley. The remains of the 28 deportees, or whatever had been found of them, were buried en masse in Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno. Hundreds of local Latino people, most of whom didn't know them, turned up towards the 28 coffins, some of which were empty, being turred in the 84 foot hole in the ground that was reserved for them. The hole was covered with dirt and eventually with grass. And there they remained, without names, without their families being told, for three quarters of a century. The next day the New York Times reported on the story. The worst aviation accident in California history. The names, ages and hometowns of the crew and the INS agent were given along with quote, 28 Mexican agricultural workers. Their lives apparently were unremarkable and even in death they didn't deserve the dignity of being mentioned by name. Like people. It's a story that 80 years later is only too familiar. The song we open this episode with is written by an American anti fascist folk musician named Woody Guthrie. Like many of his songs, it's a protest song. It recalls the plane wreck. There's one home recording of him singing it to a tune that isn't used to sing the song today. It was only uncovered a few months ago. Guthrie was moved to write it when he noticed that in the reporting on the crash, none of the migrants who were being deported on the plane were named. He wrote the song as a poem because at the time, his Huntington's career had made it hard for him to sing and strum the guitar. Later, a student at Colorado A and M named Marty Hoffman set the poem to a Mexican ranchera melody. It didn't become popular as a song until Guthrie's friend Pete Seeger began performing it at concerts. Hoffman had played it to him when Seeger had visited the campus ballad club. Guthrie, whose guitar famously carried the slogan this machine kills fascists, was in declining health by the time he wrote the poem in 1948, and he never lived to hear it sung. Hoffman, who died by suicide in Red Rock, Arizona, where he was teaching on the Navajo reservation, died right as Joan Byers was recording the song in the studio. Today, it's one of Guthrie's best known works. Of course, when he wrote the song to his disgust, Guthrie didn't know the names of the people on the plane. He imagines them in his poem as Juan Maria Rosalita, the sort of people he might meet on any given day as a touring musician who was fondly received by working people wherever he went. I know a Juan, a Maria, and a rose from the Darien Gap. I've also searched in the hills and the mountains for the remains of people whose names I don't know 80 years later. So the song resonates with me. My father's own father, he waited that river.

Jesus San Maria (10:00)

Others before him have done just the same.

Narrator / Host (10:05)

They died in the hills and they died in the valley. Some went to heaven without any name. Goodbye to my one Goodbye rose. You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane. All they will call you will be deporting. The 25 men and three women aboard came to the US to fill labor shortages after World War II as a result of an agreement between the two states called the Bracero Program. The Mexican government didn't want to lose its whole agricultural workforce and wanted to ensure that workers in the US would send a portion of their wages home. So it held these wages in accounts which some of them never saw again. For years, the Mexican government refused to extend the program to Texas because of racist violence there. People who entered the program waited months, and when they crossed the Border. They were subject to abusive searches, spraying with DDT and in some places, Zyklon B, same gas used in the gas chambers. The Holocaust was used to hose down their clothes. When they got to the US Many of them worked in very poor conditions. Many chose not to wait and instead crossed without papers. Some farmers hired them for much less than the minimum Bracero program wage and put them to work in worse conditions than the program permitted. Others worked their allotted contracts in the program, and they stayed, hoping to make a better life in the USA or to earn some money they could keep before they went home. Many of them came and went several times returning home until the need to make more money overwhelmed the desire to remain and work their ejidos or parcels across Mexico. The Mexican government wanted those who travel without a contract to be barred from being hired. And in many cases, government officials in Mexico accepted bribes to allow workers to enter the program, just as it is today. Everyone made money apart from the migrants. Bracero's letters were censored to prevent them asking their families to join them. But nonetheless, a racist panic about undocumented migration began, especially after Frankie and thousands of others returned from the war and the manpower shortage was not so acute. This, combined with demands from the Mexican government, led to Eisenhower eventually adopting a program whose name is a Slurpee, to catch, detain and deport Mexican people to parts of their birth country they'd never been to, far from the border, far from their families and communities. The operation, which focused on rapid deportations and border regions, is often cited as an inspiration for today's border regime. 76 years after Guthrie wrote his song, very little has changed in the way the legacy media covers migration. Maybe that's why everyone from Dolly Parton to Bob Dylan to Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jellings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Bruce Springsteen has sung a version of this song. Here's Johnny Cash describing the song before a TV performance. Johnny Cash, I understand this is a true story.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (13:14)

It's from our album the Highwayman.

Narrator / Host (13:16)

Johnny Rodriguez was on that album as well. On this song.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (13:20)

Yeah.

Narrator / Host (13:20)

Understand it is a true story.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (13:21)

Woody Guthrie wrote this about a plane.

Narrator / Host (13:24)

Crash in Los Gatos Canyon, taking a.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (13:28)

Plane load of Mexicans back after they worked or whatever they could get in this country. It's one of those old stories about maltreatment of aliens.

Narrator / Host (13:39)

One of those old stories, he says. It seems so hopeful in 1987, like we wouldn't be writing anymore because most people could accept that nobody should treat other people like that. Anyway, that was before, country music was entirely dominated by bootlickers. And here I am playing it to you again, 80 years after it was written, because it is still relevant. Here's Dolly Parton singing it. My father's own father he waded that river they took all the money he made in his life My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees and they rode the truck till they took down and the airplane caught fire Over Los Gatos Canyon A fireball of lightning that shook all that he who are these dear friends all scattered like dry the radio said they were just deportees Goodbye to my one goodbye. As the song puts it. The bodies of the workers were scattered like dry leaves across Los Gatos Canyon. The bodies of those 28 people, the parts that were recovered, were buried in a mass grave at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, marked later thanks to a donation with a small plaque calling them Mexican nationals, although one of them was also Spanish. The hard work of finding these people's names was taken up by people not even alive when that plane crashed. Many of their relatives did not even know they were buried there until Carlos Rascon, the Fresno Diocese director of cemeteries, and Tim Hernandez, an author and professor at UT El Paso, dedicated themselves to naming them. In 2013, a new headstone was erected with their names in a ceremony which packed the cemetery. Hernandez had found, after years of hard work by locating one of their nephews, a copy of El Faro, a local Spanish language newspaper which provided a list that was more accurate than that in the Fresno County Records Department. It wasn't until September 28, 2024, when I just left Primrose and Kimberley in Las Blancas, that a proper memorial was built for them in the canyon. Families traveled from across the US And Mexico to open the memorial. Some of them were funded by Woody Guthrie's grandchildren. The names of all 28 of them were included. They were Miguel Negrete Alvarez, Francisco Llamas Turan, Santiago Garcia, Elizondo Rosalio Padilla Estrada, Bernabe Lopez Garcia, Ramon Paredes Gonzalez, Tomas Avinha de Gracia, Salvador Sandoval Hernandez, Guadalupe Ramirez Lara, Severo Medina Lara, Elias Trujillo, Macias Jose Rodriguez Macias Tomas Padilla Marquez, Luis Lopez Medina, Manuel Calderon Marino, Luis Cuevas Miranda Martin Razo Navarro, Ignacio Perez Navarro, Roman Ochoa Ochoa Apollonio Ramirez Plasencia Alberto Carlos Regoza, Guadalupe Hernandez Rodriguez, Maria Santana Rodriguez, Juan Valenzuela Ruiz, Wenceslau Flores Ruiz, Jose Valdivia Sanchez, Jesus Meza Santos Baldomero, Marcus Torres, Francis C. Atkinson, Lillian K. Atkinson Marion H. Ewing and Frank E. Chaffin.

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Lindsey Graham (20:39)

1993, three 8 year old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. As the small town local police struggled to solve the crime. Rumors soon spread that the killings were the work of a satanic cult. Suspicion landed on three local teenagers, but there was no real evidence linking them to the murders. Still, that would not protect them. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of wondery show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US History. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, three teenage boys are falsely accused of a vicious triple homicide. But their story doesn't end with their trials or convictions. Instead, their plight will capture the imagination of the entire country and spark a campaign for justice that will last for almost two decades. Follow American Scandal on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of American Scandal. The West Memphis three early and ad free right now on Wondery.

Narrator / Host (21:43)

I think about this song an awful lot. The first time I heard it was in a CD compilation of Spanish anarchist songs. The fundamental decency of giving the deceased a name, treating them like people and not human waste, seems so basic. And yet, three quarters of a century later, reporting hasn't got any better. A few times in my years at the border, I've searched for people and the remains of people whose names I don't know, just as some of my friends have erected little wooden crosses, some with names and some without, to people who we never got to meet but somehow still grieve. There are lots of people whose names and faces I do know who never made it to the usa. They didn't even get an anonymous story. The people who die for the American dream are totally ignored in the coverage of migration. The real cost of our border externalization. Little children and loving parents who have to die so politicians of either party can brag about secure borders are completely invisible to most people in this country. 77 years less one week after the Times published its story which erased people killed in the Los Gatos Cana, it published a video. The video shows Primrose lying on the floor in agony. She climbed the wall on the ladder and then fell into the usa. On landing, she broke her leg. The story, just like that story in 1948, doesn't name her or Kim. It refers to a group of migrants and calls Primrose one woman. To be fair, the piece did interview other migrants but as is often the case, the migrants from Africa get the worst treatment of all the peace. And the hundreds of other social media posts of the video from other outlets don't tell readers about the persecution and torture Primrose faced at home, about the fact she doesn't know where her father disappeared to and that her whole family is in hiding. It doesn't bother to mention that she and Kim walked for six months to get to the border, that they were kidnapped, robbed and traumatized on their way. It doesn't even give their names. Unlike the people who died in Los Gatos Canyon. Primrose is here to tell us how it feels to see her pain turned into page views by outlets with huge global platforms.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (23:51)

Yeah, that video, to be honest, even now I feel it's embarrassing me because when I was in Texas, like if I met people, they said, are you not the one who fell down? For me, it's like something else because I was not happy for the person who put me in social media. Even if when I go to the comments, some of the comments were bad. And the other people, they don't even know what was really happening to me. I was running for my life, but people, they just comment whatever they want. So that video, even now, I'm not even happy. Yes, I know people, they make money with my video. Maybe he was supposed. The person who posted me was supposed maybe to close my face or to do something. And a lot of people, they even don't know where I am. But because of that video, it went viral. Even in my country, people, they were sending messages. That's why the other people, they went to my mom and started tortured here because they thought maybe, I mean in country, but because of that video, they went to disturb my mom. She's not even. Where I grew up now, in rural. She just moved. She's somewhere else now. So I don't even know who posted the video. And I think I need to. I don't know, what can I say, but I'm very angry with the person who posted the video. Maybe they should maybe ask me or to find me or to hide my face and where. Kimberly, she was there, My daughter, when you ask her about the video, she cries, to be honest.

Narrator / Host (25:47)

Just like those people who died in the plane crash. Primrose deserves better. I first saw the video of her falling on TikTok. I think I feel like it was shared by the Wall Street Journal. But I haven't been able to locate the post again where I saw a friend, someone else saw a way to Make a buck. It's the kind of extractive reporting that I've spent my whole career trying not to replicate. The Times and plenty of other outlets have what they see as high standards of journalistic objectivity. I don't think it'll surprise anyone that I fall afoul of those, which is fine. I don't want to be trying to find the middle ground between someone running for her life and someone trying to make money from her misery. Nonetheless, we have to live in a world where the vast majority of people get their information from outlets who see migrants as stories and a political issue, not as people. We have to live with the consequences of that. We're seeing them all now, every day. This isn't a story about the New York Times. A long time ago, I realized my career wasn't going the direction that was going to put me on the masthead of those big newspapers because I care about people like Primrose and Kimberly and not about big newspapers. This is a story about Primrose and Kimberly. So let's hear why they left Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, if you don't know, has been ruled by the same party since 1980, the Zanu PF. The Zanu PF has been led for three decades by Robert Mugabe. It has been the only party to hold the presidency since independence. The office has only changed hands once when Mugabe's former VP replaced him after Mugabe resigned under threat of impeachment and a coup. The opposition has taken different forms over time, but never managed to dislodge one party rule. When it has got close, it has been met with extreme violence, something Primrose knows only too well.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (27:33)

It's not like we just. It's a luxury to come to come to America for beggars. If I wanted to come to America for beggars, I would maybe go and apply for the visa. But us as a youth is people who wants to change our country. They don't even make you to find a way to go to make a visa. Because Zimbabwe is a tough country, especially for us young people, young generation. They can even kill you in Zimbabwe. We can't even protesting for our rights in Zimbabwe because we scared for the government who is running the country now, which is npf. We are really scared. I have people, a lot of people. I lose a lot of friends. Kidnapped, killed me also in Zimbabwe. They even tortured me, wanted to kill me. So that's why even I don't even know where he's Kimberly's father. Since 2017. I don't even Know where he is? Maybe he's dead or he's not even dead. I don't even know where he is. Because they also run away. Even now, as I'm speaking right now, I. I'm stressed. Like I don't even know where is my father. Yeah, I don't even know where he is also. He just. So our governments, our Zimbabwe, it's really tough for us. Yeah. They don't give us time or they don't give us as a young generation, they think themselves and their families and the economy. There's no job. Even if you go to school, there's no jobs. There's a lot of graduates, people staying home. They are vendors, workers, no jobs, nothing. If you want to stay in the. For your rights, they tortured you, killed you. Disappear. There's a lot of people who disappear in Zimbabwe just because you need to change.

Narrator / Host (29:49)

Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe experienced rapid economic decline and hyperinflation. At various times, Mugabe has blamed his own former colonial powers, which is reasonable, and a, quote, gay mafia, which is what you get when you have a single man in charge of your state, ruling by whim. From the moment of liberation until just two years before his death. Frame runs. Like many in her country, like many people from all over the world wanted a better future. It was something she and her family had advocated for. Having seen people she loved disappear, never knowing if they were alive or dead, never even getting the closure of a funeral, she decided she couldn't risk leaving Kimberly alone. And so she took her daughter and fled. They fled to South Africa, but violence followed them there.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (30:34)

Especially in South Africa, people are killed with xenophobia, people are killed, you know, so it's not also even safe for us to stay in South Africa. That's why, especially me. To be honest, the general was not even planned. I was just asking people. And when I reached Brazil, people, they were just talking. Let's go, let's go, let's go. I was also following those people till I get here. So it's not like we came here for luxury or for what for me. I just came here for my life. I just ran for my life. I just need my life and my daughter's life. Because if I die today, I don't have anybody can look after my daughter. Especially even in my country, because things are tough for my mom, because my father just disappeared.

Narrator / Host (31:31)

While people can't easily travel around the world, concepts like xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, they're not just American issues, they're global issues. And that's why we say nobody's free until everybody's free.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (31:43)

We just grew up in a poor family soil. But it's tough. To be honest. It's really tough for me. I'm not even 100% okay. I still have lots of memories, Stress. Yeah. And I remember one of my friends, her name was Memory. She died also. We were together in Zimbabwe when they kidnaped us for five days. So she just died. It was 2020. 2020. She just died because we were fighting for our future. Yeah. But it's tough.

Narrator / Host (32:41)

Very tough.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (32:41)

Yeah.

Narrator / Host (32:44)

Here's me talking to Primrose on that riverbank in Baja Chikito about why she left South Africa.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (32:49)

I'm just trying. No, it's only me and my daughter.

Narrator / Host (32:52)

Yeah. Was it hard to see a future for her there?

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (32:56)

Very hard.

Narrator / Host (32:57)

Yeah. So explain the situation there. Hola. Why not? Hola.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (33:05)

The situation we're in Where?

Narrator / Host (33:06)

In Zimbabwe?

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (33:08)

The situation for me, it was tough. I just ran away to South Africa and South Africa was not safe. Xenophobia and they almost kill me and my boyfriend.

Narrator / Host (33:24)

Oh, no.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (33:24)

And even my. My baby father was abusive to have too much because of the politics. I'm an opposition party, so it was.

Narrator / Host (33:38)

Difficult for me to live. Yeah.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (33:40)

Even in South Africa, I was not safe at all. Was those people, they were like following me and my daughter. So I spent three months on the road coming here. I leave South Africa. I think 4th of July till now. I'm in Panama. I'm still working.

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Lindsey Graham (36:06)

Three 8 year old boys were brutally murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas. As the small town local police struggled to solve the crime. Rumors soon spread that the killings were the work of a satanic cult. Suspicion landed on three local teenagers, but there was no real evidence linking them to the murders. Still, that would not protect them. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US History. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, three teenage boys are falsely accused of a vicious triple homicide. But their story doesn't end with their trials or convictions. Instead, their plight will capture the imagination of the entire country and spark a campaign for justice that will last for almost two decades. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of American scandal, the West Memphis 3 early and ad free right now on Wondery.

Narrator / Host (37:08)

That was September. She finally entered the USA in January, crossing into a very different country than the one she'd set out for. Her story is unique. Every migrant story is, but it's not unusual. You spend as much time talking to migrants as I do, you will learn a lot about the hardships regular people face all over the world. You'll also learn about the dreams people have and how little they really differ. Let's take for example, the protest we recently saw in Nepal. Those didn't come with a huge shock because I met dozens of Nepalese political opposition members. Here's one I spoke to as we sheltered in the porch of Nembera House in Bajo Chikito in a rainstorm last September. The little room was filled with sleeping pads and tired bodies. I spent a lot of time there, sitting on the floor, talking to people. Anouk's story is one of many I heard just in that one room from all over the world.

Jesus San Maria (38:01)

It's not safe in my country. That's why I want to go to the city states, because there is right and freedom.

Narrator / Host (38:07)

Yeah. What makes it not safe in your country?

Jesus San Maria (38:11)

There are many political reasons. Yeah. And I am from a different political like called Congress.

Narrator / Host (38:17)

Okay.

Jesus San Maria (38:18)

I'm from Congress. Just a small member.

Narrator / Host (38:20)

Not a big, but still man. Cool.

Jesus San Maria (38:23)

But opposition party, you know. Yeah. They won. They won the Constitution, so.

Narrator / Host (38:32)

Yeah. So they kick you out.

Jesus San Maria (38:34)

Yeah.

Narrator / Host (38:35)

Okay. If you're wondering how someone comes from the mountains of Nepal to a small village in the Panamanian jungle and to be briefly sharing a tiny room with people from Venezuela, Cameroon, China and Bolivia, all seeking the same thing, here's how.

Jesus San Maria (38:50)

I took a plane from Nepal to Dubai. Stayed there two months.

Narrator / Host (38:56)

Okay.

Jesus San Maria (38:56)

Then after that I went to Qatar.

Narrator / Host (39:01)

Qatar. Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (39:02)

From Qatar, I went to Brazil. I stayed in refugee camp for at least two weeks. Then after that, I came out from Brazil, took a bus. Then traveled for too much long time. Maybe 24 hours or 25 hours.

Narrator / Host (39:23)

Wow.

Jesus San Maria (39:24)

Then I went to. I caught up some friends.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (39:28)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (39:29)

They took me to Bolivia. We need to cross through jungle, but it was small.

Narrator / Host (39:36)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (39:37)

Not a long way. Yeah, it was good. And after Bolivia, I took the ride to bus.

Narrator / Host (39:44)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (39:44)

I took at least maybe 48 hours.

Narrator / Host (39:47)

Hours in a bus. Yeah.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (39:50)

Wow.

Lindsey Graham (39:50)

Man.

Jesus San Maria (39:50)

Then I went to the border of Peru and there was some boat to take us across.

Narrator / Host (39:56)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (39:57)

And I went across to Peru. Stayed in a hotel.

Narrator / Host (40:01)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (40:01)

That night. Then after that, came out and again rode the bus for 26 hours to Lima. Then after Lima, again 26 hours to Tulkan. Then after Tulkan, I got a taxi. And that taxi was to cross the border to Ecuador.

Narrator / Host (40:22)

Okay.

Jesus San Maria (40:23)

And so I went to Ecuador in the taxi and they kept us in hotel. Stayed for two, three hours in hotel.

Narrator / Host (40:31)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (40:32)

Then at night, again traveling.

Narrator / Host (40:34)

Wow.

Jesus San Maria (40:35)

Then again travel to Colombia. After Colombia, rode another bus and road to Colombia and Panama. Border.

Narrator / Host (40:48)

Okay.

Jesus San Maria (40:48)

To Nicoli. Yeah, Nicoli. To Nicoli. And we stayed maybe one week in Nicoli. After that I took a boat.

Narrator / Host (40:57)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (40:57)

To Kapur, Ghana. From Kapur, Ghana, there was some bikes. A bike took us to a camp at the border.

Narrator / Host (41:08)

Oh, wow.

Jesus San Maria (41:10)

We had the camp I reached nearly at 6pm Then after some people came There. And they were responsible to cross the border to Panama.

Narrator / Host (41:21)

Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (41:22)

Then we walked to. At 9pm, we walked to. Maybe we walked to till here.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (41:30)

44 hours.

Narrator / Host (41:32)

Wow. I asked Anuk what he had to say to people in America because he had excellent English and I have this platform to share. He was more than aware of the US discourse around migrants and he said he'd been watching videos about it.

Jesus San Maria (41:46)

We are just. Everyone is human being.

Narrator / Host (41:49)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jesus San Maria (41:50)

Of course we have some problems. So we need to leave our country, right?

Narrator / Host (41:54)

Yeah. Need to be kind to each other.

Jesus San Maria (41:57)

Yeah, we need to be kind.

Narrator / Host (41:59)

Yeah. I haven't heard from Anouk since then. I have no idea where he and his friends are or how the journey across three continents ended. Like so many other migrants, he disappeared. For me, in the mass of humanity heading north. I still think about all the people I haven't heard from. Sometimes I'll see people who look like them and I'll get excited. But if they're in the USA now, they're probably afraid of going out much. They came all this way, they risked their lives, they saw people die, and now once again, they're hiding from men in masks with guns. Here's Rose, a young woman from Bolivia. Think about Rose a lot. She was a young mum traveling alone, trying to find a better future for her family and risking her life in the process. She seemed young and happy most of the time, but she had a sort of tiredness in her eyes that really stayed with me after several conversations we had in Bajo Chiquito. I don't really know why. It just seemed so sad that she was away from her kids and that someone who so obviously was predisposed to joy looked so tired and sad all on her own there. It felt like her only chance at a better future. She was very open about how hard it all was. I remember one day when I didn't feel like recording, just sitting on the side of the raised walkway in Baja Chiquito with our feet in the hot wet mud, watching people walk by, talking with her like I'd talk with any other friend, about our homes and our families and the election that was two months away at that point. She was hanging out with a group of Venezuelans then, but they must have been separated because they've asked me about her since. Just like so many other people. I've no idea where she is. It seems so sad to me that we've made a world where a woman who wants a future for her kids has to risk her life, maybe lose it for all I Know, just to come here and ask for help and then still be denied. And then if she gets here, to be chased, harried and harassed.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (43:53)

Yes. The situation there in Bolivia right now, we're practically, economically. Well, we're in very bad shape. It's kind of like Venezuela. What motivates me to travel is more than anything, work. Because there you can't work, you can't earn enough. You know, you have to work a lot, but they pay you very little, you know, so there's a lot of poverty. So that's what motivates me to keep going to work in another country, to migrate, because I also have a family, I have children. So that's what motivates me to go to another country to work. It's a future for them. Yes, A better future for them, for my children.

Narrator / Host (44:40)

I asked her to share her journey, how it had been just to get to this little wet village that welcomes people in the middle of the jungle.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (44:50)

We left Friday morning to go to the jungle. Right. Well, let me explain. Honestly, it's not easy. It's very hard because I've seen quite a few people. There are many pregnant women. There are women with children. There are elderly people. There are adults. There are people who come with crutches. There are people who break bones if their feet fall off the edge. There are people who faint. There are quite a lot of people in a difficult situation because you have to climb a hill which takes at least eight hours.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (45:28)

You have to climb, you have to.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (45:31)

Carry your backpack, your food, your clothes, your supplies, everything you need for the journey. Your water. So it's very hard, very hard. And you go up, up, and you arrive at what is the border of Panama with Colombia, which is called the flags. You get there, and from there you have to go down, down, down. That takes at least another eight hours. You have to go down all day. On Friday, it took us all day. We had to sleep on the side on the edge of a riverbank, more or less. There were about 200 of us, if I'm not mistaken. We are about 200 people, 150, 200 people traveling and sleeping. There we camped. 200 of us. Yes. There are children, there are babies. Two months old, one month old, three months old, one year old. So there are children, and they are really the ones who suffer the most on this journey. Yes. So that night we slept. The next day, which would be Saturday, we came back again at six in the morning. We set off walking all day. We had to climb hills, we had to cross rivers that come up to your shoulders, up to your neck. They really come up. There are quite a few rivers. There's mud. There are mountains. There are those rocks that you slip on and die. There are mountains that you have to climb. Of course, if you don't want to go meet God, you have to climb mountains that are slippery with stones, rocks. And you keep going like that all.

Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (47:21)

Day downriver, walking, walking, walking.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (47:28)

There are people who got left behind. There are people who came with children. They get stuck, they faint, right? It's very hard, very difficult. And I know that all of us who immigrated here are doing the same thing. We are not bad people. We are good people. We do it for a purpose, which is our family, right? Our children. We need a good economy to support our family, our children.

Narrator / Host (48:07)

I asked Rose if there was a dream that kept her going.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (48:11)

Yes, I have a dream to go there because just like everyone else, like every person, I need to get ahead financially to provide for my children, to get ahead. So my dream has always been to be there. You know, I set that goal for myself before, but I didn't think it would be like this, so difficult. And once you're in there, well, there's nothing you can do but get out, move forward, get out of there.

Narrator / Host (48:37)

Because you can't go back, you can't retreat.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (48:41)

You have to get out. So my dream is that to provide for my children. I have two sons, they're waiting for me. I have my family, my dad, my brothers. So for that reason we set off to go there. We are still going there.

Narrator / Host (49:01)

Bolivia the American dream is such a nebulous concept. Often it's used as a byword for exceptionalism. And the idea that the US offers a true meritocracy, where hard working people can thrive in the marketplace of ideas. That isn't true. But dreams don't have to be true, nor do they have to be that far fetched. Most people coming to America know they'll work hard in the fields, cleaning homes, or maybe as a line cook. Their hands and knees and backs will do the labor that allows for privileged Americans to still believe in their version of the American dream, the one where millionaires become billionaires. But the chance to work and be paid to speak and not fear consequences, to be able to feed your kids enough that they grow up healthy and strong. Those are dreams too. They're dreams that people are willing to risk their lives for. Dreams that I've seen them chase up and down mountains, in the jungle and in the freezing cold and the baking heat of the deserts and mountains of California. But now even those who achieve their humble dreams are in danger of losing them. And tomorrow I want to talk about the end of the American dream and the beginning of an American nightmare for millions of migrants who are already here. Every time I hear the various versions of that Woody Guthrie song, I think about the friends I made in the jungle who, as the song says, maybe went to heaven without any names. So before I go, I want to share the whole Noemi's American Dream one more time, because I think it's important not to forget what the entire force of the most powerful state in the world has dedicated itself to destroying.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (50:51)

It Could Happen Here is a production.

Narrator / Host (50:52)

Of Cool Zone Media.

Cool Zone Media Producer / Interviewer (50:53)

For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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Primrose (Migrant Interviewee) (53:25)

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