Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)

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"Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" is a protest song with lyrics by Woody Guthrie detailing with the crash of a plane near Los Gatos Canyon ^[1] in Fresno County, California on January 29, 1948 and the racist mistreatment of the passengers before and after the accident. The crash resulted in the deaths of four americans and 28 illegal immigrant farm workers who were being deported from California back to Mexico.

Guthrie was reportedly struck by the fact that radio and newspaper coverage of the event did not give the victims' names, but referred to them merely as "deportees". He responded with a poem, assigning symbolic names to the dead: "Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita; adios, mis amigos, Jesus y Maria..." In contrast, the flight crew and the security guard were named in the New York Times report. They were pilot, Frank Atkinson, his wife and stewardess, Bobbi Atkinson, co-pilot, Marion Ewing and the guard Frank E. Chapin. ^[2]The mass grave for the Deportees in Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno California has been forgotten by the Mexican government and in 2003 a phone call to the cemetery provided little information. See the newspaper Fresno Bee, 1 February 1948 for details - 27 men and one woman, only 12 were ever identified, grave is 84 feet by 7 feet, two rows of caskets and not all bodies were buried the first day (1 January 1948 )but the caskets at the site had an overnight guard.

Guthrie's poem was set to music a decade later by a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman. The song was popularized at the time by Pete Seeger, although most contemporary versions follow the sparse southwestern version by the Byrds on their 1969 LP, Ballad of Easy Rider.

The lyrics of the song are as follows

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning, The oranges piled in their creosote dumps; They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border To pay all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita, Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria; You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane, All they will call you will be "deportees"

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 some are not wanted, Our work contract's out and we have to move on; Six hundred miles to that Mexican border, They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, 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, Both sides of the river, we died just the same.

The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon, A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills, Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves? The radio says, "They are 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"?

[edit] Other recordings

Joan Baez first included the song on her gold-selling 1971 album Blessed Are..., and a live version of the song later appeared on her 2004 live album "Bowery Songs."
Nanci Griffith performs Deportee with an ensemble including Lucinda Williams, Tish Hinojosa, Odetta, Steve Earle, John Stewart, Susan Cowsill, and Lee Satterfield on her 1998 album Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back to Bountiful).
Woody Guthrie's son Arlo has also recorded it on at least two live albums, once with Pete Seeger, another time with Hoyt Axton.
Dolly Parton included a reading of the song on her 1981 album 9 to 5 and Odd Jobs.
Joe Ely performs a version of this song on the first Los Super Seven album.
Ox performs this song on their Dust Bowl Revival album.
Concrete Blonde performs this song on their Concrete Blonde y Los Illegals album.
Peter, Paul and Mary performs this song on their "LifeLines" and "LifeLines Live" albums.
The Cyrus Clarke Band performs this song on their "California Stories" album.
Cisco Houston performs this song on the album "Let Freedom Sing: Volume II".
The Byrds perform this song on their Ballad of Easy Rider album.
Kerry Candaele performs this song on his "Gas Money" album.
Sabotabby performs this song on their "Celtibilly" album.
The Highwaymen perform this song on their Highwayman album.
The Battlefield Band recorded this song on their 2006 album "The Road of Tears".

[edit] Notes

^ The wreck occurred in Los Gatos Canyon, not in the town of Los Gatos (which is in Santa Clara County, approximately 150 miles away).
^ New York Times January 29, 1948, (as cited by picacho.org)