History repeats itself. Sometimes vaguely, sometimes obviously. But it always repeats itself.
Once in a long while, though, the repeat performance is so direct and so exact, that we’d have to wonder what our leadership had been doing other than learning the lessons of that history.
This is one of those times.
On January 28, 1948, a twin-engine propeller DC-3 crashed in Los Gatos Canyon (Fresno County, California), resulting in the deaths of 32 people, four Americans (flight crew and security guards) plus 28 migrant farm workers who were being deported from California back to Mexico.
Woody Guthrie, America’s greatest native-born songwriter (“This Land Is Your Land”) and activist, was deeply upset that radio and newspaper coverage of the crash did not give the victims’ names, but instead referred to them merely as “deportees”. The result of Guthrie’s scorn was what many consider his last great song, the hauntingly beautiful but unmistakenly direct “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)”. Here is Woody’s son Arlo performing it. I promise that if you read the lyrics while listening to Arlo, you’ll elevate your experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtigp6DA314&list=RDgtigp6DA314&start_radio=1
Other that, the only introductory comment I’ll make is that this is one of those repeats of history that is so spot on, direct, and unmistakable – from the broad-stroke message to the smallest of details – that no other words could enhance or diminish it, especially in today’s climate. It’s eerie how close the newspaper and cable news coverage today is to the lyrics of this song.
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
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
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
And 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 your names when you ride the big airplane
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
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 your names when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be “deportees”
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
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 big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good trees?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except “deportees”?
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita
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”
Living in New York City at the time, Woody considered the news coverage racist because none but the four Americans were mentioned by name.
Epilog
Cesar Chavez, later the founder of the United Farm Workers union, learned of the tragic crash while serving in the US Navy, helping convince him that farm workers should be treated “as important human beings and not as agricultural implements”.
In 1948, Chavz took up the fight.
In 1958, Martin Hoffman, a teacher, wrote the final version of the music.
In 1967, Woody died.
In 1993, Chavez died.
On Labor Day, September 2, 2013, a permanent grave marker – the Deportee Memorial Headstone – was unveiled at the site, naming all Mexican laborers by name.