theintercept.com/2026/01/28/wo…
Woody Guthrie Sang Against Dehumanizing the Immigrants Killed in a Plane Crash. ICE Is Doing It All Over Again.
Woody Guthrie wrote the tune “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)” about the same 1948 plane crash ICE is memorializing today.Matt Sledge (The Intercept)
Herefordrob
in reply to Herefordrob • • •Deportee
by Woody Guthrie & Martin Hoffma
The crops are all in, and the peaches are rotten
The oranges are packed in the creosote dumps
They're flying us back to the Mexico border
To pay all our money to wade back again
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adios mi amigos, Jesus and Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big aeroplane
All they will call you will be Deportee
Now my father's own father, he waded that river they took all the money her made in his life six hundred miles to the Mexico border
They chased us like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus and Maria you won't have a name when you ride the big aeroplane
No, all they will call you will be Deportee
The sky-plane caught fire, over Los Gatos Canyon A big ball of fire, it shook all the ground
Who are these friends who are falling like dry leaves
The radio said they were just deportees
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus and Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big aeroplane. No, all they will call you will be Deportee
But we died in your hills, we died in your valleys
We died in your orchards, we died on your plains
We died on your deserts, we died in your treetops
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 aeroplane. No, all they will call you will be Deportee
© 1948