The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119804   Message #2601042
Posted By: peregrina
31-Mar-09 - 04:02 AM
Thread Name: song challenge: deportees/illegal migrants
Subject: songchallenge:deportees/illegal migrants
In Plane Wreck at Los Gatos, Woody Guthrie has the lines

'Who are all these friends, scattered like dry leaves?/ The Radio says they are just just deportees'
and then chorus with the NAMES 'Good bye to my Juan, good bye Rosalita. Adios mis amigos Jesus y Maria'...--the same point about affirming people's humanity by remembering them by name came up in 'Reuben James' where apparently Woody wanted to name each lost person by name...

Today the presenter on Radio 4's Today Show referred to people who had drowned as 'illegal migrants' (they had set out on an unsafe boat, from Libya, presumably bound for Italy). But they are not illegal migrants until they have migrated somewhere illegally.

A song in there anyone?