(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Why did he get the story wrong?: questioning a documentary [1] ['Thom Hartmann', 'Karen F. Duncan'] Date: 2026-08-12 Near the end of a documentary I watched recently there was a poignant and difficult story that could have been told better; now I am wondering why. When I was recovering from an illness I followed a link and watched a documentary about Mexican & Mexican-American music and culture. The famous musicians were Linda Ronstadt, and a friend she often toured with, Jackson Brown. There’s a group, Los Cenzontles [Mockingbirds], that promotes Mexican musical roots; Eugene Rodriguez, is a teacher in the group. The documentary, 2020, is one hour long. Linda and Jackson supported the work of the group; other musicians have as well. It has a lot of fun music and dancing. It talks a lot about importance of culture, traditional Mexican musical traditions that became Mexican-American. Young Mexican-Americans should be proud of their culture. Mexican-Americans have a lot to offer America. They can be good citizens. Toward the end of the documentary Jackson Brown talks about bad things that can happen. (At 52:40, from the automated transcript:) There’s another amazing song that I can’t sing because I can’t get through it without crying, but it’s a Joel Rafael song called “Sierra Blanca Massacre.” Immigrants who were being smuggled into the United States were locked in a container and left in the heat by the people that were smuggling them, and they died. As they realized they weren’t gonna survive this, they wrote some things down that my friend, Joel, put into a song, and it’s very moving. ♪ Fleeing my country for a better life ♪ ♪ I didn’t even say ♪ goodbye to my friends ♪ ♪ Not to my grand parents, ♪ ♪ nor to my parents ♪ ♪ Rosario Caldera Salazar, I said ♪ ♪ Alone I cried. There was no witness ♪ ♪ Only God knew my sorrow and shame ♪ The chorus: ♪ These are some words ♪ from the victims found ♪ ♪ Inside a boxcar in a small Texas town ♪ ♪ Locked from the outside ♪ in spite of their pleas ♪ ♪ Inside was 130 degrees ♪ ♪ Inside was 130 degrees ♪ In the documentary, Brown doesn’t identify the incident or the year, other than saying the song title. After finished watching, I searched on DuckDuckGo for more. The incident happend in Sierra Blanca, Texas, almost 50 years ago. I was in my early 30s at the time. I remember it as the victims were found in a large truck, not a railroad boxcar. It wasn’t local; I didn’t remember until writing this essay. Thing is, as far as I can tell, “As they realized they weren’t gonna survive this, they wrote some things down” isn’t what happened. Joel Rafael’s lyrics are ambiguous. He says “These are some words from the victims” and doesn’t specify the action of writing. I don’t know how Joel introduces the story in concert or on whatever record album. Here is an excerpt from a local newspaper article DuckDuckGo found for me, Tulare Advance Register, Volume 105, Number 163, 4 July 1987 Edition 02, page 3: Aliens diary tells of shame, pride SIERRA BLANCA, Texas (AP) -A diary found among blood-covered clothing in the boxcar where 18 illegal aliens died told of sadness, pride and shame at fleeing Mexico for a better life. I didnt even say goodbye to my friends, not to my grandparents or to my parents, Rosario Caldera Salazar wrote in a poem titled El Regal, or The Illegal. Caldera was believed to be among the victims found Thursday in this West Texas town, but they have not all been identified and authorities have not released the victims names. This is a different story. Joel’s lyrics are again ambiguous since the reporting seems to be of something ONE person wrote, though there were multiple victims. And all the “words” seem to be from the one poem. :-/ I am confused. Maybe conflicted. I don’t know how Jackson got the story wrong. Did he misunderstand? I suppose the poem could be said to be “representational” of how others besides the author in the boxcar might have felt. Writing a poem in a diary is not the same thing as writing a last message in a mercilessly hot boxcar. (And how write it? Maybe someone had a flashlight?) But the news report said nothing about “messages”. Maybe Jackson couldn’t handle the full horror and remembered it in a way he could handle. Jackson told a story he wanted to tell; it was recorded; there was an editing process. Shouldn’t there have been factchecking? This seeming mistellling has me distrusting the message of the documentary. There is wonderful music, dancing and tapdancing by the young musicians, as well as from a Linda Ronstadt Vegas show, to get the audience in a happy mood. There is talk of community values that contributed to the musical traditions. Then a story of tragedy. In talking about “values” the main speakers of the documentary are avoiding the dark side of being a “good American”. Immigrants, specifically from Mexico, should be treated better. Immigrants from other places aren’t mentioned, as far as I remember. USA militarization, bloated Pentagon budget, 500+ major foreign military bases, and forever wars aren’t mentioned. In the interviews surrounding the musical sections there’s a lot of verbal flag-waving, and it’s repetitive. If not for the significant misrepresentation of the tragedy I would probably have just reacted “they skipped stuff”. But the flag-waving along with the misrepresentation … it bothers me enough that I wanted to write it up and ask the reaction of other dK people. Thanks for reading. 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