Re: Poems of Liberation & Revolution

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Brady wrote:
>
> I am making a list.
> What are your favourites?
>

"Deportee" by W Guthrie


            The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting,
            The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps.
            You are flying them 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 a name when you fly the big airplane
                And all they will call you will be deportee.

            My father's own father he waded that river,
            They stole all the money he made in his life.
            My sisters and brothers come working the fruit trees
            And rode the truck til they took down and died.

                Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
                Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.
                You won't have a name when you fly 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 outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

                Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
                Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.
                You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane
                And all they will call you will be deportee.

            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.

                Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
                Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.
                You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane
                And all they will call you will be deportee.

            The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon --
       `    A fireball of lightning which shook all our hills,
            Who are all these friends all scattered like dry leaves?
            The radio says they are just . . . deportees.

                Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
                Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.
                You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane
                And all they will call you will be deportee.

            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?

                Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,
                Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.
                You won't have a name when you fly the big airplane
                And all they will call you will be deportee.


Plus a stanza from Molly Jackson (quoted from memory)

The bosses ride on a big white horse
While we walk in the mud.
Their flag's the old red, white and blue,
But ours is dipped in blood.

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