All They Will Call You

At 6:00 am on January 28, 1948, the guard Officer Chaffin wakes up Luis and Ramón in immigration detention. Ramón tells Guadalupe it’s “time to fly” (127). The detainees are nervous about the upcoming flight. Most of them have never been on a plane before. María says it’s better than the trains, which stink of cattle and manure. Someone else retorts that at least the trains are reliable.

In late spring of 1948, José Murillo Ramírez returns to Charco. He goes to the home of Ramón Paredes and tells Ramón’s wife, Elisa, and their six children that Ramón is dead. Eventually, the whole town hears how Ramón and Guadalupe were captured by immigration officials in San Juan Bautista, California.

Guadalupe was living in San Juan Bautista and Ramón came for a visit with Guadalupe and José. José went out to get things for a meal and when he returned, immigration officials were rounding up the migrants. José hid and, after la migra left, he realized Guadalupe and Ramón had been taken to the El Centro deportation center in San Francisco.

In his 2014 interview with Hernandez, Guillermo Ramírez, Ramón’s grandson, recalls his time in the El Centro Deportation Center. The conditions are poor and many people are forced to sleep on the floor for weeks. He first got sent there after being caught walking through the desert with friends. One of the officers there told him how to answer the judge’s questions so Guillermo could remain in the US. He stayed for 26 years and recently became a citizen.

On January 28, 1948, the detainees prepare to go. Luis feels excited about seeing Casimira soon. Around 7:00 am they board the bus to go to the Oakland Municipal Airport. Officer Chaffin escorts them onto the tarmac. The pilot, co-pilot, and stewardess board. Then, Officer Chaffin has them board the Douglas DC-3. A pictogram at the end of the chapter notes that the plane had a capacity of 29 people but that 32 people boarded and that it was nearly 10 hours over its routine maintenance schedule.

In March 2014, Eliseo González, José González’s sister, tells Hernandez how José Valdivia was captured by immigration officials.

González, Valdivia, and Valdivia’s cousin Amado play billiards all afternoon. Valdivia and González were pool sharks and annoy some of the white customers by beating them quickly. When it got late, González decided to go home. Later, Valdivia and Amado board the last bus back to the camp. Before it leaves, two immigration officials board the bus and the bus driver points them out. They are caught.

At 8:20 am on January 28, 1948, Captain Frank Atkinson, co-pilot Marion Ewing, and stewardess Bobbie Atkinson prepare for liftoff. There aren’t enough seats so some of the passengers sit on luggage piled in the aisle. Bobbie gives the all clear, but she feels nervous. Officer Chaffin sits in the back of the plane.

Four weeks earlier there had been a recall of every Douglas airplane. Two had crashed in the last three months. Bobbie was nervous about Frankie flying and said that if he ever died, she wanted to be with him. The morning of January 28, 1948, two of the stewardesses called out and Bobbie agreed to fill in. She is pregnant. As they drive to the Burbank Airport, Frankie and Bobbie agree to wait to tell people about it. Before they board the plane, Frankie reassures Bobbie that everything will be fine. 

At 9:15 am, Frankie does final checks for takeoff. The passengers are nervous. They get cleared for takeoff from the control tower. At 9:30, the plane takes off. The passengers watch the earth fall away. María wonders if this technology isn’t “downright ungodly” (58). When the plane reaches cruising altitude at 9,000 feet, Bobbie tries to make some small talk with María, but María doesn’t speak English. Another passenger tells Chaffin he has never been on a plane before.

In 1620, a man named John Howland left Huntingdonshire, England, aboard the Mayflower. He worked hard as a farmer to become a freeman in the New World. Howland has a daughter named Hope, who marries a man named Chipman. For some unknown reason, her son’s family name is recorded as Chaffin instead of Chipman and became the family name for seven generations.

By 10:30 am, the plane is crossing the Diablo Range of California. It’s warm and smells of toilet on the plane. Ramón thinks about home and his feeling of failure for getting caught.

In an interview, Celio Valdivia tells Hernandez that Amado was supposed to go on the airplane, but José Valdivia volunteered to go in his place because Amado was afraid of planes.

On the plane, Valdivia thinks about how he is going to miss the start of baseball season and about seeing his brother, Celio. The plane starts to shake and make a noise. The passengers smell burnt rubber. Frankie knows something is wrong. The left engine goes out and Frankie takes emergency measures. He looks for somewhere to land the plane. Valdivia sees a fire in the left engine. María reaches for Lupe’s hand. Then, the left wing and engine fall off the aircraft.

Luis Miranda Cueva’s left leg is pulled off. Some of the passengers fall out of the plane. Then, the plane explodes. On the ground, Red Childers and the inmates at the prison camp see and hear the explosion. Frankie Atkinson was the only person on the plane who knew what was coming. Before his body caught fire, scenes from his life flash before his eyes. Red can see body parts falling out of the plane. Nancy Gaston sees the wing falling toward her. Then, wreckage from the plane begins to rain out of the sky. Everyone is killed.

The inmates arrive at the crash site where Red Childers is in shock. They all begin shoveling dirt on the flames. June Childers remembers that the dead bodies looked like a butchered cow. A couple of years later, one of her horses kicked a skull in that field. They never found all the body parts.

All of the victims’ family members Hernandez interviewed recount their memories of how they found out that their loved one was dead. Frankie’s mother was in shock for a long time afterward. Ramón Paredes’s daughter recalls reading in the newspaper that he had fallen out of the plane. Others heard the news on the radio or through word of mouth. Guadalupe’s dog Lobo howled every night after his death and died a year later.

Pieces of the crew’s bodies were recovered, including Frankie’s torso and Bobbie’s finger. Their bodies were sent back to Rochester by train, where there was a large funeral. Officer Frank Chaffin’s remains were buried in Berkley, while co-pilot Marion Ewing’s remains were sent to Long Beach. His wife, Dorothy, filed suit against the coroner, but she lost. Ewing was buried with full military honors in Ventura, California.

Following the explosion, the Justice Department issued a statement that “[a]ir transport is never forced on a deportee” and denied all liability (177). The number of bodies identified was disputed. The cost of shipping the remains back to Mexico was considered too expensive.

On January 31, 1948, services are held for the passengers. Hundreds of campesinos from all over the Central Valley attend. There are 28 caskets to represent each of the passengers, although some are empty. None of the family members of the passengers were notified about the funeral. Fermin, Guadalupe’s adopted son, is disappointed they did not get to hold a traditional Charco de Pantoja service for his father. The caskets were buried in a mass unmarked grave in Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno. Later, a small placard was added, but it did not include the passengers’ names.

Because of the similarity of their names, word of mouth led José González’s family to believe he had been killed in the crash rather than José Valdivia. González’s mother, María, became obsessed with listening to the radio for news confirming her son’s death. The more time went on with no news of her son, the more María grew depressed. One day in December 1951, José González turned up on her doorstep. She wailed with disbelief and relief.

In the 2013 interview with Jaime Ramírez, Jaime shows Hernandez a clipping from El Faro, a Central American newspaper. It has a list of the 32 passengers killed in the crash. While Hernandez reviews the list, Jaime tells him that he found the mass grave by checking the Fresno County Hall of Records and seeing the name Holy Cross Cemetery listed. Now he visits the gravesite every year on Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. When Jaime told his supervisor about his visit, his supervisor asked him if he had heard the Woody Guthrie song about the crash and gave him a tape.