woodie guthrie • martin hoffman
On January 1948, a planeload of deportees back to Mexico caught fire and crashed in the canyon of Los Gatos, California. The victims of the accident were spread across a large area, no attempt at identification were made except for the white crew, the next of kins were not noticed and their bodies were shuffeled into a common grave.
A furious Woody Guthrie wrote the inserat "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos" in the New York Times. Years later, a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman came up with the melody for a performance in New York, called the song "Deportee" and it's told that Guthrie ... then crippeled from MS disease ... were present at the theater premiere, recognized the words, and whispered them along with the performance.
The song was then spread to the public, mostly thanks to recordings by the Weavers, Pete Seeger and then Joan Baez. In 2018 the victims at least were offered a memorial gravestone; click the picture for the full story. But an outrageous issue is that extortion of illegal immigrants *right in this area* still is common, now writing 2024.
the crops are all in and the peaches are rotten
the oranges are piled in their creosote dumps
they're flyin' them back to the Mexican border
to pay 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
and they rode the truck till they took down and died
some of us are illegal and others not wanted
our work contract's out and we have to move on
six hundred miles to the Mexican border
they chase us like rustlers • like outlaws • 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
some went to heaven without any name
...the sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
a fireball of lightning that shook all the hills
who are all these friends all scattered like dry leaves?
the radio said they were 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"?
goodbye to my Juan • goodbye Rosalita
adios mi amigo • Jesus y Maria
you won't have your names when you ride the big airplane
all they will call you will be deportee
For the following CHORD section, fullscreen/horizontal mobile is recommended.
Chords in brackets may be omitted.
A Bm7 A the crops are all in and the peaches are rotten A Bm7 A the oranges are piled in their creosote dumps D A they're flyin' them back to the Mexican border A Bm7 A to pay all their money to wade back again D A A7 goodbye to my Juan goodbye Rosalita E E7 A A7 Adios mi amigo Jesus y Maria D A you won't have your names when you ride the big airplane A Bm7 A all they will call you will be deportee
