( Words by Woody / Music by Martin Hoffman Live performance Ellen Verdries, his mother )
The are all in and the peaches are rotting, The are piled in their creosote dumps. They're you back to the Mexico border, To pay all your oranges to wade again.
My own father, he waded that river, took all the money he made in his life. My brothers and sisters working the fruit trees, And they rode the trucks till took down and died.
to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita, Adios mis amigos, y Maria. You won't a name when you ride the big airplane, All they call you will be "deportees".
of us are illegal, and some are not wanted, When contract is out, got to move on. Six hundred miles to the border, They us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
We died in hills, and we died in your deserts, We died in your valleys and on your plains. We died 'neath trees and we died in your bushes, sides of the river, we died just the same.
to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita, Adios mis amigos, y Maria. You won't have a when you ride the big airplane, All they call you will be "deportees".
The sky plane caught over Los Gatos Canyon, A of lightning, it shook all our hills, Who are these friends, all scattered like dry The radio says, "They are deportees".
Is the best way we can grow our big orchards? Is this the best way we can grow our good To fall like dry and rot on our topsoil, To be known by no name "deportees"?
to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita, Adios mis amigos, y Maria. You won't have a when you ride the big airplane, All will call you will be "deportees". All they will call you be "deportees".