Deportees

The crops are all in, the peaches are rottin’

The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps,

They’re flyin’ you back to the Mexico border

To pay all your 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 sisters and brothers come workin’ the fruit trees

And they rode the trucks til 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

And all they will call you will be deportees.

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 Mexico border

They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

We died in your hills and 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.

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus and Maria

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

And all they will call you will be deportees.

The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos canyon

Like a fireball of lightning that shook all our hills.

And who are 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 your topsoil

And be known by no name except deportees!

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adios mis amigos, Jesus and Maria

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

And all they will call you will be deportees.