Nanci Griffith - Deportee (Plane Wreck At Los Gatos) lyrics

(Woody Guthrie - Martin Hoffman)

The crops are all in

And the peaches are rotting

The oranges are stacked

In their Creosote dumps

They're flying them back

To that Mexico border

To pay all their wages

To wade back again

Chorus

Goodbye to you 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

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 on the trucks

'Til they took down and died

Chorus

Somos ilegales (Well some are illegal)

Y mal recibidos (And some are not wanted)

Se a caba el contrato (our work contracts out)

Y de alli a caminar (And we've got to move on)

Six hundred miles

To that Mexico border

They chase us like outlaws

Like rustlers, like thieves

Chorus

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 that river

We died just the same

The sky plane caught fire

Over Los Gatos Canyon

Like a fireball of lightning

And shook all our hills

Who are all those friends

All scattered like dry leaves

The radio says

They are just deportees

Chorus

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 my topsoil

And beknown by no name

Except deportee

Chorus