Pacific Drift on KPCC

May 1, 2005


Lynchings [Listen] The immigration debate is laced with the mythology of the Old West - Migrants coming here to write their own destiny... anti-immigration people warn of "frontier justice" to stop illegal crossings. Ben talks to an artist who traveled up and down the California taking these beautiful photographs of old trees. Ken Gonzales-Day is writing a book about our whole notion of "frontier" or "cowboy justice." The trees he photographs are places where men and sometimes women were hung. Ken tells Ben that California needs to accept its past, which is just better than Alabama, just worse than Arkansas.