In 1948, Woody Guthrie read a newspaper story about a plane crash in California’s Los Gatos canyon. The crash killed 32 people, 28 of whom were migrant farm workers. The plane crew’s remains were sent home to their families, but the farm workers were only named as deportees in news reports and were buried in a giant mass grave. Guthrie, furious at the dehumanization of those workers, wrote a protest song called “Deportee”: “Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?/ Is this the best way we can raise our good crops?/ To fall like dry leaves and rot on out topsoil/ And be known by no names except ‘deportees.’” It’s as relevant today as it was in 1948.
