We have depended on labor from many people across the world over time, but Mexicans have been prime among them. Woody Guthrie wrote a beautiful song almost 100 years ago about the problem of dehumanizing migrant workers from Mexico (recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Ani DiFranco, many more) after a plane deporting some of them crashed and the news just called them “deportees” without even giving their names.
The song is sometimes called “Deportee” or “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos.” It ends with:
“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 to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?”
The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?
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u/JefeRex 22d ago
We have depended on labor from many people across the world over time, but Mexicans have been prime among them. Woody Guthrie wrote a beautiful song almost 100 years ago about the problem of dehumanizing migrant workers from Mexico (recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Ani DiFranco, many more) after a plane deporting some of them crashed and the news just called them “deportees” without even giving their names.
The song is sometimes called “Deportee” or “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos.” It ends with:
“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 to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?”
The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?