SONG OF THE DEPORTEES
(by Woody Guthrie; learned at Teton Tea Parties in the 1960s.this is a poignant song to me because i grew up near the work camps in the Central Valley)
The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting,
My father's own father, he waded that river.
Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos canyon,
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
(from miriam berg's folksong collection)
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps.
You're flying them back to that Mexico border,
To pay all their money to wade back again.
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye, Rosalita,
Adio, mi amigos, Jesus y Maria,
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be deportees.
They took all the money he made in his life.
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode on the truck till they took down and died.
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye, Rosalita...
Our work contract's out and we have to move on.
Six hundred miles to that Mexico border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye, Rosalita...
We died in your valleys, we died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye, Rosalita...
A fireball of lightning, and it shook all our hills.
Who are all these friends who are scattered like dry leaves?
The radio said they were "...just deportees."
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye, Rosalita...
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on the topsoil,
And be called by no name except...deportees.
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye, Rosalita...