Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) - Nanci Griffith

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting

The oranges are stacked in their Creosote dumps

They’re flying them back to the Mexico border

To pay all their wages to wade back again

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

They rode on the trucks till they took down and died

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita

Adios, mis amigos, Jesus and Maria

You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane

All they will call you will be «deportee.»

Somos ilegales y mal recibidos

(Well, some are illegal and some are not wanted)

Se a caba el contrato y de alli a caminar

(Our work contract’s out and we’ve got to move on)

Six hundred miles to that Mexico border

They chased us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves

We died in your hills and we died in your deserts

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

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon

A fireball of lightning, it 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 best orchards?

Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit—

To fall like dry leaves and rot on our topsoil

And be known by no name except «deportee?»