Day 1171, Illegal, Essential

(New York Times: April 4, 2020: Undocumented farm workers, still deportable, are “essential.”) (May be sung to “Deportee,” by Woody Guthrie and Martin Hoffman.) (1)

 

The orchards are heavy with fruit ripe for picking;

The grapes are all ready to turn into wine.

You harvest the crops we prepare for our tables;

We don’t think of you when we sit down to dine.

 

You came to this country by wading a river;

Your mothers and fathers had done just the same.

You’re smuggled in trucks, die of thirst in our deserts;

You came here to work, not a dime to your name.

 

We all need you, Juan; we need you, Rosalita.

Bienvenidos amigos, Jesus y Maria.

We call you illegal but now you’re essential,

And some day, we still might call you…Deportees.

 

 Each year in the fall, when we end harvest season,

We don’t need your work and no work means no pay.

Now you become fruit that is ripe for La Migra.

ICE may hunt you down if you don’t run away.

 

We’ve done it this way since before the great dust bowl.

You come every spring and you leave in the fall.

Our country depends on the food that you harvest,

No guest worker visas and Trump builds a wall.

 

So, goodbye to Juan and goodbye, Rosalita.                         

Adios, mis amigos, Jesus y Maria.

You still are illegal, no longer essential

And all fear the day you become…Deportees.

 

Since you are illegal, you work for low wages,

Line up on street corners, and hope to be hired.

You clean all our houses, take care of our children;

Complain if we cheat you and you will get fired.

 

Is this the best way to grow food for our tables?

Rely on guest workers, we threaten and cheat?

You feed our good Christians and feed all our bigots,

Illegal, essential for food that we eat.

 

We all need you, Juan; we need you, Rosalita.

Bienvenidos, amigos, Jesus y Maria.

We call you illegal but now you’re essential.

And, some day, we still might call you…Deportees.

 

(1)  Deportee…Plane Wreck at Los Gatos, was a poem written by Woody Guthrie in 1928, about a plane crash that killed 4 Americans and 28 migrant workers, deportees.  Ten years later, a schoolteacher, Martin Hoffman, wrote the now, well-known melody and Pete Seeger began singing it in concerts.