DEPORTEE

a.k.a. PLAN WRECK AT LOS GATOS
a.k.a. GOODBYE JUAN

The crops are all in, the peaches are rotting
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps
They're flying 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 brothers and sisters they work in the fruit trees
They rode the truck 'till they took down and died

CHORUS:
Good-bye to my Juan, Good-bye Rosalita
Adios mes amigos, Jesus e 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 some are 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 on your deserts.
We've died in your mountains, and died on your plains.
We've died 'neath your trees, and we've died in your bushes.
Both sides of the river, we've died just the same.

CHORUS

The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of lightning that shook all our hills
Who were all these dear friends all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says they were just deportees.

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
And is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves and rot on the top soil,
And be known by no name except "deportee".

CHORUS

(Guthrie), by Woodie Guthrie, ca 1940. Played on 28 Aug 1981, sound-checked on 04 Mar 1988, and played a couple of times in 1996, during The Ghost Of Tom Joad tour, or off-tour.