The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting,
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
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"
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.
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.
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 good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?
The African slaves, the Japanese, the Irish, the Italians, the Germans, the Polish, the Mexicans all were despised, mistreated, abused but they made America strong and rich.
ReplyDeleteBeing from Seattle, I'm aware of the Japanese internment camp in Puyallup and also on Bainbridge Island. Because of Pearl Harbor, my grandmother had blackout blinds for all the windows so Japanese bombers wouldn't recognize the house from the interior lighting.
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