I have often stated that migrants, as far as the state is concerned, are beings with no human rights, a sub-human species, to be used as scapegoats, as fodder for the political machinations of their particular ideology. This is a phenomenon from the state created illusion of our superiority, our exceptionalism. There is a litany of cases of migrants being abused, used and denigrated, and being stripped of their humanity. A 1948, in America, one case of migrant herding ended in tragedy with the media adding further insult by treating the deaths of the migrants with indifference. Woody Guthrie marked the occasion with a poem.
Lyrics
The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning,
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
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
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"
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"
My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters they working the old church,
They rode the big truck still laydown and died
"Chorus"
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"
"Chorus"
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters they working the old church,
They rode the big truck still laydown and died
"Chorus"
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"
"Chorus"
TEDx Talks published on June 3rd 2026.
In 1948, a plane carrying 32 passengers crashed in the Los Gatos Canyon, California killing everyone on board. The media, including the New York Times, listed the names of the pilots, the flight attendant and the immigration guard but all 28 of the migrant workers (braceros) were labeled as deportees. This angered folk singer Woody Gutherie who wrote a poem about the crash. Almost ten years later, school teacher Martin Hoffman composed a melody to Guthrie's poem and that song became well known. Around 2010 Central Valley writer Tim Z. Hernandez discovered the story and soon began a project of finding the names and surviving relatives. Soon after musician Lance Canales joined the journey and composed his own version of the legendary song with Hernandez reading all the names of the deceased workers. Thanks to a fundraiser spearheaded by the two artist a new head stone has been built in the Holy Cross honoring all 32 passengers. Lance Canales is a roots-blues musician from California’s breadbasket. He lived the life that so many songs have been written about since the birth of roots music – hard labor, one room shacks and ghosts whispering of a better life. Canales’ guttural vocals combine a hard-edged storytelling approach with stripped down, foot-stomping, acoustic instrumentation that people readily respond to; Canales and his band, The Flood, were a favorite at the 2015 Sister’s Folk Festival. Canales led the initiative to place a memorial headstone with the names of the plane crash victims of the famous Woody Guthrie song “Deportee,” who were discovered buried nameless in a mass grave in Fresno, California. Now and forever nameless no more. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
