Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos) - Richard Shindell

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting

The oranges are packed in their creosote dumps

They’re flying 'em back to that Mexico border

To take all their money 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 the big trucks till they lay down and died

CHORUS

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria

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

And all they will call you will be deportee

Some of us are illegal, and all are not wanted

Our work contract’s out and we’ve got 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 armies, we died on your plains

We died 'neath your trees and we died 'neath those bushes

Both sides of that river, we died just the same

CHORUS

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon

Like a fireball of lightning, it shook all our hills

Who are all these friends, dying 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 and rot on my topsoil

And be known by no name except deportee

CHORUS