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"?
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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.
DeleteI remember Brownsville in the late 50''s and early 60''s. Some of the residential neighborhoods had what were essentially telephone chains. When a Border Patrol vehicle would turn down the street, cruising for gardeners or a maid sweeping a front porch or hanging out laundry to dry the housewives at the head of the street would get on the phone and alert their neighbors to make sure the maids and gardeners were out of sight. Those ladies would then alert their neighbors and so on right down the street. Sometimes the migra would sneak in by using the alleys running behind the homes. I remember once our maid was spotted from the alley. When she realized what was up she ran into the house. The agent knocked on the door and asked that the maid be presented to him. Mom asked what maid? He made some threats about a warrant and left. As soon as he was out of sight the maid was whisked to a neighbor's home where she stayed for the rest of the day.
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