What We Should Learn From The History Of Farm Workers

Forbes

15 hours ago

Photo of folk singer Woody Guthrie playing his guitar while a cigarette dangles from his lips. Ca. ... More 1960s. (Photo by �� John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
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.
The crops are all in and the peaches are rottingThe oranges piled in their creosote dumpsThey're flying 'em back to the Mexican borderTo pay all their money to wade back again
My father's own father, he waded that riverThey took all the money he made in his lifeMy brothers and sisters come working the fruit treesAnd they rode the truck till they took down and diedGoodbye to my Juan, goodbye, RosalitaAdios mis amigos, Jesus y MariaYou won't have your names when you ride the big airplaneAll they will call you will be "deportees"Some of us are illegal, and some are not wantedOur work contract's out and we have to move onSix hundred miles to that Mexican borderThey chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thievesWe died in your hills, we died in your desertsWe died in your valleys and died on your plainsWe died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushesBoth sides of the river, we died just the same
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, RosalitaAdios mis amigos, Jesus y MariaYou won't have your names when you ride the big airplaneAll they will call you will be "deportees"The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos CanyonA fireball of lightning, and shook all our hillsWho 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 topsoilAnd be called by no name except "deportees"?
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, RosalitaAdios mis amigos, Jesus y MariaYou won't have your names when you ride the big airplaneAll 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.
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.