Deportees: Remembering Names

I usually keep the Ukestra videos somewhere else on my page but I wanted to put this one here.  ​Recorded under a variety of names, this song began life as a poem by Woody Guthrie to commemorate the (at that time) anonymous Mexican victims of a plane crash in 1948.  The song was set to music by a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman and it has been sung ever since. The passengers were migrant farm workers being transported back over the border to Mexico.  Reports at the time did not feel the need to mention their names. 

A name is important.  It has practical uses, of course.  It is also a recognition of our existence as holy children of God.  To erase someone's name doesn't really erase their existence or their holiness, However, it makes it very hard to tell their story.  What is happening today is a willful ignorance--a gross perpetuation--of our past and present injustices.  It is suppression and oppression of people.  It is an attempt to erase the reality of our shared humanity to comfort the status quo. 

​We cannot stand with the status quo. We cannot allow the victims of today's crackdown on immigrant families--separating them from each other and in some cases "losing" their identities--to become mere numbers.  We cannot allow ourselves to be numb.  We must know their faces and their names and speak them loudly to the powers and principalities of this world. 

Obviously, this song still has meaning for us today. Our nation--both before and since the plane crash at Los Gatos--has grappled with recognizing the humanity of people who do not fit a "traditional" (that is, white) concept of "America".  We played this song on Sunday in recognition of past and ongoing acts of injustice.  It is a reminder that the more things change the more they stay the same.

One postscript to the story is that years later, thanks to some diligent work, the names of the victims of the plane crash were discovered.  Here they are so that they are not forgotten again....

The 28 Mexican Citizens Who Died in the Plane Wreck Over Los Gatos January 28, 1948
Miguel Negrete Álvarez. Tomás Aviña de Gracia. Francisco Llamas Durán. Santiago García Elizondo. Rosalio Padilla Estrada. Tomás Padilla Márquez. Bernabé López Garcia. Salvador Sandoval Hernández. Severo Medina Lára. Elías Trujillo Macias. José Rodriguez Macias. Luis López Medina. Manuel Calderón Merino. Luis Cuevas Miranda. Martin Razo Navarro. Ignacio Pérez Navarro. Román Ochoa Ochoa. Ramón Paredes Gonzalez. Guadalupe Ramírez Lára. Apolonio Ramírez Placencia. Alberto Carlos Raygoza. Guadalupe Hernández Rodríguez. Maria Santana Rodríguez. Juan Valenzuela Ruiz. Wenceslao Flores Ruiz. José Valdívia Sánchez. Jesús Meza Santos. Baldomero Marcas Torres.

There were prayers this Sunday as well.  Our Congregational Associate prayed for the displaced people of the world.  I closed with a prayer for the dream of that Commonwealth of Heaven, or as Woody Guthrie put it in one of our readings, "One Big Union."


Prayer for the One Big Union 

Yes, we do all believe in “One Big Union”
We may not call it that
We may use terms like “The Just Society”
Or the “The Utopian Ideal”
Or the “Commonwealth of Heaven”
But what draws us together in places like
The Eliot Church 
Is the dream of something greater
The will to oppose inequality
To find a home for the displaced
And to see the humanity of the stranger

We also gather here to recognize the call
In the words of the prophet Micah
To do Justice, Love Mercy, and walk humbly with God

We know that this new world
This new society will not come
Without the sacrifices and labors 
Of those who envision it
And we know that we need help
To maintain our vision

And so we  pray:

Dear God,
We know that we have fallen short
Of the call to equality, peace and justice
To the building of a world 
That is free of violence and oppression
That give to each according to their needs
In the spirit of radical welcome that Jesus
And other prophets taught

We know this and we are sorry
And promise to commit ourselves
To the One Big Union again

Dear God please give us the strength
To keep on traveling down that road
A road with many distractions 
Many struggles and discomforts
Please give us the assurance
That (even though we may never see the day
Of the Commonwealth here on Earth)
Please give us the assurance we need

To still work toward that day
In Faith, in Hope, and always in Love

Amen