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

Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María

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 come working the fruit tree

And they rode the truck 'til they took down and died

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María

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

They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María

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

Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María

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 Gatos Canyon

A fireball of lightning that shook all our hills

Who are all these friends all scattered like dry leaves?

The radio said they are just deportees

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita

Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María

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?