Deportees

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps
You’re 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 ride the big aeroplane
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 gone working the fruit trees
They rode the truck till 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 ride the big aeroplane
All they will call you will be deportees

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 that Mexican border
The 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 aeroplane
All they will call you will be deportees

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 ride the big aeroplane
All they will call you will be deportees

The sky plane caught fire over Los Cato’s canyon
A fireball of lightning that shook all our hills
Who are all these friends all scattered like dry leaves
The radio said they heard 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 aeroplane
All they will call you will be deportees

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchard?
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 deportees

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