How do I acknowledge 9/11? With this tribute to "Deportees".
In 2005, more than 500 Mexicans died trying to cross over into the U.S.
illegally.
Deportee on Wiki
Best version? I have an ensemble version that I adore that is
attributed to "Woody Guthrie"-- obviously, the song-writer-- with no further
information about the performers. Sounds like early Weavers, but it's
not them. Lists of songs performed and recorded by the Weavers do not
list "Deportee".
Dolly Parton did a version, on her album "9 to 5". I will remind you
that she was quite a good singer before the industry got their fangs into
her style.
2011-09-11
The only "tribute" to
9/11 I could really stomach to watch was the curious performance of Paul
Simon, at Ground Zero, of "The Sounds of Silence". As he
sang,
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
the camera cut to a shot of the
American flag draped on a nearby office tower. Very curious.
Simon didn't change a word-- good man!-- so we were left with an image of
the "words of the prophets" written on the subway walls and tenement halls.
We know from
another Paul Simon's songs what one of those words was.
On January 29, 1948, the New York Times ran a story about a plane crash in
California in which 32 people died, 28 Mexicans, and four Americans. The
four Americans were identified by names and professions. The Mexicans were
merely identified as "deportees".
Woody Guthrie read the article and thought about those Mexicans. He
thought about their wives and children and girlfriends, and about the way
they risked their lives at times to cross over into the U.S. illegally to
try to make some money to send home to their families. He thought
about how they were often exploited and cheated by their "coyotes" (guides),
and sometimes abandoned to die in the dessert. He thought that they
deserved to have names.
He wrote the lyrics for "Deportee (Plane Crash at
Los Gatos Canyon)" and recited the piece at some performances. Ten years later, a school teacher named Martin Hoffman
took Guthrie's poem and wrote a melody for it. Pete Seeger covered it and
it became a hit.
It's a beautiful song. It's flawed (that last didactic verse isn't
necessary)-- like the faces of many great
beauties-- but it has a zen-like clarity to it that entrances. It
builds slowly, laying out the scene, literally and metaphorically, and then
hammering home it's point with
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.
Both sides of the river, we died just the same may the most
eloquent summation of a liberal, progressive attitude that I have ever seen.
This is not about war between illegals and native sons, or Mexicans and
Americans, or the owners and the dispossessed. It's about how we treat
each other as human beings. It's about the dignity of the laborer, and
the hypocrisy of a culture that openly hates illegal immigrants but depends
on them to harvest their crops, look after their children, and wash their
cars.
One measure of the greatness of a song is its enduring appeal. Is
there another song that has retained such a high degree of relevance?
Up to 500 Mexicans die every year trying to cross the border illegally to do
work that Americans won't do, for willing employers. In return, they
are treated like "outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves".