The difference between a Cuban and a Mexican in these United States is that the moment a Cuban sets foot on American soil, he or she receives refugee status; the Mexican who lands on American soil automatically qualifies as a deportee. Thus the Cuban gets a green card and can pursue citizenship. The Mexican gets durance vile. The difference, of course, is that Cuban-Americans have the wherewithal to buy prostitutes disguised as senators and congresspersons.
As for Trump’s solution to undocumented Mexicans, we’ve been here before. You might say that Trump is 80 years after his time, which explains the calcification of his brain. You can hear Guthrie’s son sing this song here.
Deportee
(also known as “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos”)
Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Martin Hoffman
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”?
Recent Comments