Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee)

Joan Baez

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting 
The oranges are packed in the creosote dumps 
They're flying you back to the Mexico border 
To pay all your 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 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 
They rode the big trucks till they lay down and die 

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita 
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria 
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane 
All they will call you will be deportees 

The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon 
A fireball of lightning, and it shook all the hills 
Who are these comrades that died like the dry leaves 
The radio tells me they're just deportees 

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita 
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria 
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane 
All they will call you will be deportees 

We died in your hills and we died in your deserts 
We died in your valleys we 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 ride the big airplane 
All they will call you will be deportees 

Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted 
Our work contract's out and we have to move on 
But it's six hundred miles to that 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 ride the big airplane 
All they will call you will be 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 and rot on the top soil 
and be called by no name except "deportee" 

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita 
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria 
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane 
All they will call you will be deportees