Creating and Healing the "Other" Rift with Folk Music

| Creating and Healing the "Other" Rift with Folk Music

On Jan. 28, 1948, a plane crashed near

Los Gatos Canyon 20 miles west of Coalinga, instantly killing all 32 people aboard.

It was the worst aviation accident in California history at the time.

While major newspapers identified and ran portraits of the four white people who had been on the plane, 28 Mexican seasonal farm worker passengers were labeled only as “deportees” because the flight was a U.S. Immigration Services charter returning them to Mexico.

American songwriter and folk singer Woody Guthrie was heartbroken when he read the story the next day and immediately wrote a poem "DEPORTEE" that Martin Hoffman set to music a decade later. Research six and a half decades after the crash restored names to the workers.

We are going to listen to the words of this often recorded magnificent song, learn more of the history, and ask ourselves "What would happen today?"

We will also hear songs that highlight the many ways we categorize people as “Others” in our society and will discuss the ways in which we can help to change the things that divide us as people. This will include the music of Bill Heffernan, James Keelaghan, and Audrey Chin.

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