Deportee

(album: Time To Think - 1963)

The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning
The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps
They're flying them back to the Mexico border
To take all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, farewell Roselita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you is just deportee

My father's own father, he waded that river
They took all the money he made in his life
It's six hundred miles to the Mexican border
And they chased him like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves

The airplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
A great ball of fire that shook all the hills
Who are these friends who are falling like dry leaves?
The radio said, "They're just deportees"

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can raise our good crops?
To fall like dry leaves and rot on our topsoil
And be known by no name except deportee

Goodbye to my Juan, farewell Roselita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you is just deportee