It Could Happen Here - Darién Gap: One Year Later | Part Two: To Be Called By No Name

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

In the second episode of a four part series, James talks about why Primrose left Zimbabwe and the way migrants are covered in legacy media. Primrose’s Legal Aid Fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/immigration-lawyer-for-primrose Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/world/americas/trump-us-mexico-border.html https://www.fresnobee.com/news/article299272524.html https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/woody-guthrie-deportee-song-immigrants-rare-recording-1235383582/ https://southkernsol.org/2024/09/30/marker-unveiled-at-1948-plane-crash-site-that-killed-28-mexican-passengers/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-orders/  http://www.toddmillerwriter.com/border-patrol-nation/  https://timzhernandez.com/all-they-will-call-you/  https://www.ice.gov/features/atd  https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/us/ice-impersonators-on-the-rise-arrests-made-as-authorities-issue-national-warning  https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1225&num=0&edition=prelimSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit

gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Atlanta is a spirit. It's not just a city. It's where Crunk was born in a club in the West End. A four world star, it was 559. Where preachers go viral. And students at the HBCU turned heartbreak into resurrection.

Where a dream was brought Hollywood to the south. And hustlers bring their visions to create black wealth. Nobody's rushing into relationships with you. I'm big rude. Listen to Atlanta is. On the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me.

In season two of RipCurrent, we asked, who tried to kill Judy Berry and why. They were climbing trees, and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Jingle bells, jingle, jingle all the way.

Yo, yo, yo, can we get Thanksgiving first? I'm hungry you. What's up, y'all? It's Kadeen. And DeVal, the host of the Ellis Ever After podcast. This holiday season, tune out the noise and tune in to Ellis Ever After. On Ellis Ever After, we get real with our crew about family, love, and marriage. everything else in between.

Listen to Ellis Ever After on America's number one podcast network. IHeart. Follow Ellis Ever After and start listening on the free IHeart Radio app today. 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 would like to help out. Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted. Our work on tracks out and we have to move on. hundred miles to that Mexico barter they chase us like

applause and rustlers like these. Goodbye to my one, goodbye Rosalida. Adios my amigos, Jesus and Maria. You won't have a name when you ride

the big airplane and all I will call you will be deportee. On the 28th day of January, 1948, a plane took off from Oakland, California, on board with a crew, an immigration nationalization service officer, and 28 people who had come to the U.S. to work in the Bracero program. They were being sent to El Centra, where they were to be deported to Mexico. The pilot, Frankie Atkinson, had found a job flying DC-3s as a civilian after flying the legendary dangerous hump route between India and China and the pilot. Second World War. His wife, Bobby, herself, the daughter of a migrant mother, was filling in that day as usual flight attendants weren't available. On board were 28 passengers, all headed back to Mexico

after 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 Kowlinga, not so far from the field, 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, and 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 Kalinga. Frankie, the pilot, had survived crashes in his time of the Air Force, so hopefully he was able to keep its pastures 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 riots the 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, and then bodies. Some of them still in their seats littered throughout the canyon. Only 16 sets of remains forever 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 a 28 coffins, some of which were empty, being interred in the 84-4 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 It's 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 a 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 a time, his Huntington's career had made it hard for him to sing and strum the guitar. Later, a student of Colorado A&M named Marty Hoffman set the poem to a Mexican francerra melody.

It didn't become popular as a song until Guthrie's friend Pete Seeger began performing 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 Baez 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, Guthry 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 finally 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 retinates with me.

My father's own father, he waited that river. Others before him have done just the same. They died in the hills, and they died in the valleys. Some went to heaven without any name. Goodbye to my one, goodbye, Rosalita. The only am Ivo, Jesus, Maria. You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane. All they will call you will be deportee.

The 25 men and three women aboard came to the U.S. to fill labor shortages after World War II, as a result of an agreement between the two states called the Brasserro 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. 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, Zyclon B, same gas used in the gas chambers, the Holocaust, was used to hose down their clothes. When they got to the U.S., 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 Bracello program wage and put them to work in worse conditions in the program permitted. Others worked their allotted contracts in a 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 overwhelm the desire to remain and work there arehitos or parcels across Mexico. The Mexican government wanted those who travel without a contract to be barred from being hired, and in many case, 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. Bracerro'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 slur to catch, detain, and deport Mexican people to pass to their birth country they'd never been to, far from the border, and 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, Chris Christopherson, Wayland 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. Cash, I understand this is a true story. It's from our album, The Highwayman, Johnny Rodriguez, was on that album as well, on this song. Yeah, I understand it is a true story. Woody Guthrie wrote this about a plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon, taking a plane load of Mexicans back after they work for whatever they could get in this country. It's one of those old stories about mal-treatment of aliens.

One of those old stories, he says, it seems so hopeful. 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 boot-lickers, 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 waited 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 died The airplane caught fire Over Las Gatos Canyon A fireball of lightning that shook all out here Who are these dear friends

Oh, scattered like dry leaves The radio said They were just Deep 14 Goodbye Goodbye to my one As a song As a 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. Mark later, thanks to a donation with a small plaque calling the 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 Raskon, 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 the 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 Kimberly and La Hasblancas, that a proper memorial was built for them in the canyon. Families traveled from across the U.S. of 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 Negrette Alvarez.

Francisco Yamaas Duran. Santiago Garcia Elizondo. Rosalio Padilla Estrada. Bernabe Lopez Garcia. Ramon Paredes-Gonzales. Thomas Avigne de Gracia. Salvador Sandoval Hernandez.

Walupe Ramirez Lara. Severo Medina Lara Elias Trujillo Massias Jose Rodriguez Masias Thomas Padilla Marquez Luis Lopez Medina Manuel Calderon Merino

Luis Cuevas Miranda Martin Razo Navarro Ignacio Peres Navarro Roman Ochoa Ochoa Apolonio Ramirez Placencia Alberto Carlos Regosa Walupe Hernandez-Rodriguez

Maria Santana Rodriguez Juan Valenzuela Ruiz Wenceslau Flores Ruiz Jose Valdivia Sanchez Jesus Mesas Santos Baldomero Marcus Torres Francis C. Ackinson Lillian Kay Atkinson

Marion H. Ewing and Frank E. Chaffin. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? The most anticipated guest from season three is here. The Trey to My Charlotte. Kyle McLaughlin joins me to relive all of the magical Trey in Charlotte moments. He reveals what he thinks of Trey. giving Charlotte a cardboard baby. Why would I bring her a cardboard baby?

I was literally, I was like, this doesn't track for me at all. When he found out Trey's shortcomings, I'm kind of excited at talking about, you know, I think he's a guy spends time in Central Park, you know, he's probably, you know, he'll be some surgery stuff, you know,

and I was like, all this kind of stuff going on, and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. And they said, but he's impotent. And I was like, he's impotent. And why he chose not to return to it just like that. They came and presented an idea, And I was like, I get, I see it. It's so kind of a one joke idea.

You don't want to miss this. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or best. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky.

For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman'scuturban.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Jingle bells, jingle all the way. Yo, yo, can we get Thanksgiving first? I'm hungry. Hey, y'all, it's Kadeen. And Devon.

The hosts of Ellis Ever After podcast. This holiday season, whether you're cooking for the family, out buying gifts for the kids, or crowded in holiday traffic, tune out the noise and tune in to Ellis Ever After. On Ellis Ever After, we get rid with our crew about family. Have you feeling like you're feeling? That's probably because you're a good parent. Friendship.

Be careful what you put in your body. Move your body and love it the way you love them cars that house, them clothes, them shoes. Them brunches. Love and marriage. You know what's become attractive to me? And it's because I've self-corrected and I guess I detoxified myself. self, accountability. It has become so attractive to me and everything else in between.

I've told my most embarrassing moment on this podcast before, which was me taking a in a zip lock bag. So listen to Ellis Ever After on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It's okay not to be okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love within each other. Thanksgiving isn't just a. about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another. I'm Elliot Connie, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real families come together to heal and find hope. What would be a clue

that would be like? I've gotten lots of text messages from him. This one's from a little bit better of a version of him. Because he's feeding himself well, it's always a concern. Like, are you eating well? He's actually an amazing cook. There was this one time where we had neighbors and I saved their dog and I ended up inviting them over for food and that was like one of my proudest moments. This is family therapy. Real families, real stories on a journey to heal together. Listen to season two of family therapy every Wednesday on the Black Effect Podcast Network, IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I think about this song an awful lot.

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, not human waste, seems so basic. And yet three quarters of 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 and 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 O'Don, who never made it to the USA. They didn't even get an anonymous story.

The people who die for the American Green 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 than one week after the Times published its story, which are raised to people killed in the Los Gatos Canyon. 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 kin. It refers to a group of migrants and calls Primera's one woman. To be fair, the peace did interview other migrants, but as is often the case, and migrants from Africa get the worst treatment of all. The peace and hundreds of other social media posted a 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 walk for six months to get to the border, that they were kidnapped, robbed and traumatized on the 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. 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, I'm 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 even when I go to the comments, some of the comments were bad and the other people they don't even know what was really happened 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 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 because they they thought maybe I'm in country but because of that video they went to disturb my mom she's not even where I grow up

now in the 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 Kimberlish was They, my daughter, when you ask her about the video, she cries, to be honest. 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 a kind of extractive reporting that I 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 a 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 of 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 in the direction that was going to put me on the masthead of those big newspapers because I care about people like Primbo's and Kimberly. I'm not about big newspapers. This is a story about Primrose and Kimberley. So let's hear where they left Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, if you don't know, has been ruled by the same party since 1980.

The Zano P.F. The Zanu P.F has been led for three decades by Robert Mugabe. It has been the only party to hold the president's since independence, the office has only changed hands once when Mugabe's former VP replaced him after Mugabe resigned under a 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. So I think Primrose knows only too well. It's not like we just, it's a luxury to come to America for Vegas. If I wanted to come to America for bigger, I would maybe go and apply for the visa. But as a youth, as people who want 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, a young generation. They can even kill you in Zimbabu.

We can't even protesting for our rights. in Zimbabwe because we're scared for the government, we're running the country now which is un-pf. 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 ways is Kimberly's father. Since 27, I don't even know where he's maybe he's dead

or it's not even dead. I don't even know way he's because they also run away. Even now, as I'm speaking right now, I'm stressed like I don't even know

where it's my father. Yeah, I don't even know where he's also, it 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 they are 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 for your rights, they tortured you, killed you.

you disappear. There's a lot of people who disappear in Zimbabwe just because you need to change. Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe experienced rapid economic decline and hyperinflation. At various times, Mugabe has blamed with some 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. Framers 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. But 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. Especially in South Africa, people are killed with this one of them. people are killed, you know, so it's not even safe for us to stay in South Africa. That's why, especially me, to be honest, the genre 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 until 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 what 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. We just grew up in a poor family, so it's tough, but it's tough, to be honest, it's really tough. For me, I'm not even 100% okay. I'm still having lots of memories, stress, yeah. And I remember one of my friends.

The name was memory. She died also. We were together in Zimbabwe when they kidnapped 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. Very tough.

Yeah. Here's me talking to Primrose on that riverbank in Bahiajikito, about why she left South Africa. I'm just trying, no, it's only me and my daughter. Yeah. Was it hard to see a future for her there? It's very hard. Yeah.

So. Explain the situation there. Hola, well, nice. Hello. Welcome. the situation in where i come from the situation for me it was tough i just ran away to south africa and south africa was not safe sonophobia and uh they almost kill me and my boyfriend and even my my my baby father was abusive too much abusive because of the politics

I'm an opposition Parts so it was difficult for me to live So that's why I ran out Even in South Africa I was not safe at all Because those people they were like Following me and my daughter So I spent three months on the road

Coming here I live South Africa I think 4th of July Till now I'm in Panama I'm still walking I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast. Are You a Charlotte? The most anticipated guest from season three is here. The Trey to My Charlotte.

Kyle McLaughlin joins me to relive all of the magical Trey and Charlotte moments. He reveals what he thinks of Trey giving Charlotte a cardboard baby. Why would I bring her a cardboard baby? I was literally, I was like, this doesn't track for me at all. When he found out Trey's shortcomings. I'm kind of excited at talking about, you know, I think he's a guy spends time in Central Park, you know, he's probably, you know, he'll be some surgery stuff, you know, and I was like, all this kind of stuff going on. And they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. And they said, but he's impotent. And I was like, he's impotent. And I was impot. They came and presented an idea. And I was like, I get, I see it. It's so kind of a one joke idea. Right. You don't want to miss this. Listen to, are you a Charlotte on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get you. your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes

gentlemen's cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. enjoy responsibly. May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Barry's car.

I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful and terrible than anything that I could describe. In season two of Rip Current, we ask, who tried to kill Judy Barry and why? She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods.

The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more than it was the culture. It was the way of life. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It's okay not to be okay sometimes and be able to build strength and love within each other. Thanksgiving isn't just about food. It's a day for us to show up for one another.

I'm Elliot Connie, host of the podcast Family Therapy, a series where real families come together to heal and find hope. What would be a clue that would be like? I've gotten lots of text messages from him. This one's from a little bit better of a version of him. Because he's feeding himself well. It's always a concern. Like, are you eating well?

He's actually an amazing cook. There was this one time where we had neighbors and I saved their dog and I ended up inviting them over for food and that was like one of my proudest moments. This is Family Therapy, real families, real stories on a journey to heal together. Listen to season two of Family Therapy every Wednesday

on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 to talk 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 protests 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 Nambara House in Baho-Chicito

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. Anuk's story is one of many I heard just in that one room from all over the world. because it's not safe in my country that's why I want to go to the states because there is right and freedom yeah

what makes it not safe in your country there are many political reasons and I am from a different political like called Congress okay I'm from Congress just a small member not a big one still man but

that makes it dangerous opposition party you know they won they won the Constitution, so... Yeah. So they kick you out. Yeah.

Okay. If you're wondering how someone comes from the mountains and 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. I took a plane from Nepal to Dubai. He said there two months. Okay.

Then after that, I went to... Qatar yeah 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 a long time maybe 24 hours or 25 hours then I went to I caught up some friends yeah they took me to Bolivia. We need to cross through jungle. But it was small, not a long way. Yeah. It was good. And after Bolivia, I took the ride to bus. I took at least maybe 48 hours. In a bus? Wow, man. Then I went to the border of Peru and there was some boat to take us across.

yeah and i went across to peru we stayed in a hotel yeah 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 equator okay And so I went to Ecuador in the taxi and they kept us in hotel. He stayed for two to three hours in hotel. Yeah. Then at night again traveling. Wow. Then again traveled to Colombia. Yeah. After Colombia, uh, rode another bus and road to

Colombia and Panama border. Okay. To Nikoli. Nikoli. Yeah, Nikoli. To Nikoli. and we stayed maybe one week in Nikoli. After that, I took a boat to Kapurgana. From Kapurgana, there was some bikes.

A bike took us to camp at the border. Oh, wow. At the camp, I reached nearly at 6 p.m. Then after some people came there, and they were responsible to cross the border to Panama. Yeah. Then we walked to at 9 p.m. We walk to maybe, we walk to till here 44 hours.

Wow. Yeah. I asked Anouk 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 U.S. discourse around migrants. And he said he'd been watching videos about it. We are just everyone with human beings. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because we have some problems, so we need to live our country. Right, yeah, need to be kind to each other. Yeah, we need to be kind. Yeah. I haven't heard from Manu since then. I have no idea what 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 at a time, but she had a sort of tiredness in her eyes that really stayed with me after several conversations we had in Bahra Jukito. I don't really know why.

It just seemed so sad that she was away from her kids and someone who so obviously was predisposed to joy looked so tired and sad, all on her own there. I felt like her only chance had 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 Bahajikito with her feet in the hot, wet mud,

watching people walk by. Talking with her like I talked with any other friends. 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 Venezuelansen, but they must have been separated because they've asked me about her since. Just like so many other people, I have no idea where she is. It seems so sad to me that we've made a world where 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. 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 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 I asked her to share her journey how it had been just to get this little wet village that welcomes people in the middle of the jungle 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. You have to climb. You have to 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 the same. 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 day. Downriver, walking, walking, walking. 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 I'm a a dream for the United

I ask me I asked Rose if there was a dream that kept her going. 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 because you can't go back. You can't retreat. You have to get out. So my dream is that to provide for my children. I have two sons. You're waiting for me. I have my family. I have my dad, my brothers.

So, for that reason, we set off to go there. We are still going there. 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 hardworking 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 that work hard in the fields, cleaning homes, or maybe as a line cook. The hands and knees and banks 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. Their dreams that people are willing to risk their lives for. And dreams that I've seen them chase

up and down mountains in the jungle and in the freezing cold and the baking heats 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 always.

already here. Every time I hear the various versions of Woody Guthrie's song, I think about the friends I made in the jungle, who as a song says, maybe went to heaven without any names. So before I go, I want to share the little Naomi'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. And what do you want to our United to study?

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