The plan was to try their luck in California’s thriving Gold Rush and secure the kind of life they could only dream of back in Sonora. The front page of the Fresno Bee after 28 Mexican citizens died in a plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon on January 28, 1948.Ī charming, free-spirited kid with a black mane and serious eyes, he arrived on horseback with a new bride and a head full of dreams. But the canyon’s memories go deeper than that.Īpproximately 100 years before the crash, on the heels of the signing of the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic - aka The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo - a 19-year-old vaquero from Hermosillo, Mexico, crossed the invisible line in the sand between Sonora and Alta California.
Immigration and Naturalization Service, which killed 28 “deportees” and inspired the Guthrie song. Memories like the 1948 crash of a plane chartered by the U.S. Then, once in a while, a light breeze will come along and blow off the dust, expose the canyon’s memories. Hash marks in the rings of the black oak trees. The radio says, “They are just deportees.” Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves? The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,Ī fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills. Like Tweet Email Print Subscribe Donate Now