#deportee

The Byrds - Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) (1969) Woody Guthrie (Lyrics) / Martin Hoffman (Music) from: "Ballad of Easy Rider" (LP)

Protest | Folk-Rock | Mexican Waltz

Tumblr (left click = play) (320kbps)

Personnel: Roger McGuinn: Lead Vocals / Guitar Clarence White: Lead Guitar / Backing Vocals John York: Bass / Backing Vocals Gene Parsons: Drums / Guitar / Banjo / Backing Vocals

Produced by Terry Melcher

Recorded: @ CBS Columbia Square in Hollywood, California USA on June 19, 1969

Album Released: on November 10, 1969 Columbia Records

*** *** ***

He recorded this song 70 or so years ago. It was found on a reel-to-reel tape. The deport-the-Mexicans itch that trump and stephen miller are scratching isn't new, just more vicious.

Excerpt from this story from Smithsonian Magazine:

When an aircraft crashed near Coalinga, California, in 1948, all 32 passengers and crew members perished. After the incident, the Fresno Bee, a local newspaper, published the names of some of the passengers, most of whom were farm laborers from Mexico. But the Associated Press’ coverage only named the crew members. In the news agency’s article, the passengers were referred to simply as “28 Mexican deportees,” as Rebecca Plevin reported for LAist in 2013.

The plane had been chartered by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. Some of the workers had traveled to the U.S. without documentation, while others had arrived in the country as part of a government-sponsored work program; they were going home because their contracts had ended. None of those nuances were captured by the words “28 Mexican deportees.”

That phrase upset Woody Guthrie, who came across it when the AP story ran in the New York Times. So the activist and musician did what he did best: He commemorated the victims of the plane crash with a song. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, that iconic song has a new life.

i've heard the woody guthrie song deportee many times over the years

its tone sometimes pensive sometimes poignant but the lyrics always somewhat distant

a story from the past about braceros and migrants who were used often abused and who sometimes died on this foreign soil with barely a notice

but history is repeating itself

exceeding itself here and now deportation widescale wholesale zero tolerance our official policy― new and improved! now with added cruelty!

the border patrol ripping children from parents caging people like animals with less food, water, and shelter than the average American pet

the government vilifying immigrants treating asylum seekers like vermin not like human beings who are just looking for safety security jobs to provide for their loved ones

the same things we all want

today inundated by these horrific stories faced with piercing pictures of the suffering and the fear we've needlessly inflicted

Ulises (pseudonym) who was deported for the United States treasures the hat of his grandfather which hangs on the living room of the family's home. Deportations of Salvadorans, mainly from the United States and Mexico, are up in 2017 compared to 2016. / Ulises (seudónimo) quien fue deportado de los Estados Unidos atesora el sombrero de su abuelo, el que cuelga en la sala de la casa d. Las deportaciones de salvadoreños, principalmente de Estados Unidos y México, aumentaron en el 2017 en comparación con 2016. #EverydayElSalvador #refugee #Amnesty #CentralAmerica #Trumplandia #photojournalism #deportee #Immigration #ElSalvador #EverydayLatinAmerica #JuanCarlos #2017copyright

Joan Baez & Bob Dylan, “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee)” Fort Worth, TX, May 16, 1976.

“We’ve died in your hills and we’ve died in your deserts. We’ve died in your valleys, we’ve 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...

---

Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted Our work contract's out and we have to move on But it's six hundred miles to that Mexican border They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

---

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 and rot on the top soil and be called by no name except "deportee"