Woody Guthrie – Deportee – Lyrics about the exploitation of immigrant workers.

Woody always took the side of the underdog, the misfortunate, exploited and spat upon. He roamed the country, rode boxcars, made friends with blacks, Mexicans and down and outs. He fought for the unions to establish a fair wage. He fought against a capitalist system that put enough money in the pockets of the bosses that it was easier for them to bring in thugs to beat the workers into submission rather than pay them a living wage.

One of the tricks then, and still today, was to hire illegal immigrants, pay them a pittance and hand them over when they were no more use to be deported back.

The Mexicans waded the Rio Grande to get into America in order to be exploited because there was no work in Mexico. They died in their thousands in those desert lands.

A planeload of deportees crashed and all the papers said was that a number of deportees had been killed. Woody saw them as people. He was incensed. He wanted to give them all the names they deserved so people could see them for what they were; human beings who were doing their best for their families. They deserved respect and dignity. They had names.

Deportee (Plane wreck at Los Gatos)

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott’ning,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They’re flying ’em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be “deportees”

My father’s own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract’s out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and 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.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, “They are just deportees”

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except “deportees”?