Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
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legacy / protest song
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Martin Hoffman/Woody Guthrie
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
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.
Chorus:
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"?
"Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" is a protest song with lyrics by Woody Guthrie and
music by Martin Hoffman detailing the January 28, 1948 crash of a plane near Los Gatos
Canyon, 20 miles west of Coalinga in Fresno County, California. The crash occurred in
Los Gatos Canyon and not in the town of Los Gatos itself, which is in Santa Clara County,
approximately 150 miles away. Guthrie was inspired to write the song by what he considered
the racist mistreatment of the passengers before and after the accident. The crash resulted
in the deaths of 32 people, 4 Americans and 28 migrant farm workers who were being deported
from California back to Mexico.
I have put this song in the Songwriters section because it is more contemporary than
most of Woody's other songs. Songs by Woody Guthrie in this collection:
Do Re Mi
Gypsy Davy
Hard Travelling
Hard, Ain't it Hard
Pastures of Plenty
Philadelphia Lawyer, The
Reuben James, The
Roll on, Columbia
So Long, It’s Been Good To Know You
Talking Blues
This Land Is Your Land
Union Maid
Woody's Rag
It was recorded by Dave Guard and the Whiskey Hill Singers (1962), The Kingston Trio (1963),
Cisco Houston (1963), Judy Collins (1964), Odetta (1964), The Brothers Four (1964),
The Byrds (1969), Joan Baez (1971), Barbara Dane (1973), Arlo Guthrie (1974),
Pete Seeger (1975), The Highwaymen (1985), Peter, Paul and Mary (1995),
Bruce Springsteen (2000) and many others.
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