Deportee, or Plane Wreck at Los Gatos by Woody Guthrie
Written by folksinger and songwriter Woody Guthrie as a protest against what he regarded as racist attitudes about the 1948 plane crash near Los Gatos Canyon in Fresno County, California.
The crash resulted in the deaths of 32 people, 4 Americans and 28 migrant farm workers who were being deported from California back to Mexico. All migrant farm workers were Mexican citizens, and all were part of the Bracero program.
Guthrie was inspired to write "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" when he realized that radio and newspaper coverage of the event did not give the victims' names, but instead referred to them merely as "deportees." For example, none of the deportees' names were printed in the January 29, 1948 New York Times report, only those of the flight crew and the security guard.
The Mexican victims of the accident were placed in a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, California. There were 27 men and one woman, with only 12 of the victims ever being identified.
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