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September 1963 

September in the California Central Valley is always hot, always dusty, and in the back of the truck that lumbered along the empty road that late summer afternoon the air was heavy with the heat, dust, and stench of the more than 50 sweaty men crammed inside. There was not much talk among them; they were too spent from the long day—ten hours long—spent in the fields under the blazing sun harvesting celery. They’d brought in thousands of pounds of celery that day, like they had the day before, like they expected to do the next day, until all the celery was harvested and they would move on to another crop, or maybe another farm. It didn’t matter—whichever farm and whatever crop, the work was essentially the same. 

Now, crowded into the truck that carried them back and forth from their labor camp in Salinas to the fields where they worked, they thought about the work now done and the money earned. But would the money be paid? The patrón could be tricky when payday came—somehow the count often came up shorter than what the men had figured it to be, or he held back some amount he said he was owed for use of tools or some other nonsense. So the 60 hours of back-wrenching work every week—six days a week, ten hours a day—never brought in 60 hours worth of pay, and for the youngest men, the newest to join the crew, who often didn’t have their own tools and had to buy or “borrow” them from the patrón, well, they were little better than slaves. They’d usually work the better part of a month before they ever saw a dime. 

But best not to think about that now. They might as well enjoy this short bit of rest, cramped and hot and uncomfortable as it was. The truck they were riding in was a converted flatbed, with two long wooden benches on either side and a canvas canopy attached overhead. The lucky ones managed to grab a spot on the benches; the less lucky got the floor, where they sat cross-legged among the long knives they used for slicing off the heads of celery. In the front of the truck, the foreman was at the wheel and three other men were squeezed in beside him. Sardinas, that’s what they all were. Tiny, insignificant fish in a big green ocean of farmland, scooped up, packed in tight, and shuttled back and forth. By the end of the 30-minute ride, their legs would be in spasm and their asses would be numb from the jostling on the hard wood. By then, even the dilapidated cabins they were housed in would be a welcome sight just for the chance to stretch out on a cot. The niños may climb all over them but the women would give them some quiet, for a little while anyway. Then there’d be something for supper, assuming there was enough money, then a few hours of welcome sleep. Then they’d be back tomorrow, doing the same thing all over again. 

One of the younger men had a transistor radio and the canciones played softly. Most of the men just let the music lull them deeper into a stupor, but the foreman, a big, gruff man who went by the name Oso sang along in a loud voice, closing his eyes now and then as he poured emotion  

into every measure of the tunes. This was his favorite part of the day, when the work was done and he no longer had to harangue at the men about this or that. They were good men, for the most part, and he would have liked to have made friends with some of them, but that would not do. He had to keep his distance or they would not respect his authority. Besides, you never know how long they would be around. No point in making friends with someone who may disappear tomorrow. So he didn’t even bother learning their names, or telling them his. To them, he was “jefe.” And to him, they were just numbers—that was how they were logged into the work rolls and how they were paid. The farm-owners considered workers’ names an unnecessary inconvenience. And as far as Oso was concerned, they may be right about that. Oso liked these men, most of them anyway. They were good, hard-working men, but they lacked ambition, he felt. Sure, they had left their homes in Mexico and traveled hundreds of miles over the border to come to the U.S. to work, but in most cases that was more out of desperation than ambition. He, on the other hand, had a plan. He’d come north as a bracero and in just ten years had made foreman. He had married and last year he had a son, a skinny but strong little boy who seemed to have his father’s determination if not his bear-like build. Oso was enormously proud of his son and certain that even better things lay ahead for him, as long as Oso didn’t squander his opportunity or give the boss any reason to get rid of him. So day after day, week after week, he kept his head down and worked his crew hard.  

But on the ride home, he let his guard down just a bit, thinking that this musical interlude made him seem more human to the men without necessarily compromising his command. So he belted out corridos and rancheras to his captive audience and felt certain they appreciated the show. At least it made the miles go faster, those vast miles of nothing but rolling green fields with dirt devils dancing through the rows. 

They were still eight miles away from Salinas but they could see Rte. 101 ahead. Oso slowed the truck down in anticipation of crossing it, but before he reached the highway, he had to cross the railroad tracks that ran alongside it. He was very adept at coaxing the ramshackle truck over the rails each day but it was a slow-going process easing the rig along. As he maneuvered the front wheels over the first rail, he heard one of his favorite songs come on the radio. 

“¡Levántelo!” he yelled into the back of the truck, turning his head to make sure he was heard. The young man with the radio complied, turning the volume dial up as far as it would go. The truck bumped slowly over the tracks with the radio playing full blast and Oso crooning along loudly. 

If anyone heard the train whistle over the din, there was no time to react. In an instant the music and Oso’s singing were replaced with the squeal of braking wheels on steel, followed by a crash that seemed to go on forever. The Southern Pacific train broadsided the truck and dragged it more than half a mile north along the track, leaving a path of splintered wood, metal, and men. The dead and injured littered the  sides of the track, impaled by pieces of the shattered truck or sometimes even by their own tools. 

Oso slowly rolled over in the ditch where he’d landed and began to crawl, first on his belly and then on all fours, back up the embankment of the tracks. When at last he could stand, he stared down the tracks. The train had come to rest without derailing, but on either side of the train Oso  

saw the chaos of debris and blood. He smelled diesel fuel and smoke. He heard the moaning of the injured and dying. And from somewhere down the line the transistor radio continued to play the last verses of Oso’s favorite song, “El hijo prodigo.”