The Times They Aren’t A-Changin’

Throughout the last century in American history, music has been one of the most powerful tools for creating change. It has provided a medium for the common people to share their stories, to speak out against oppression, and to be heard even in the midst of the loudest injustice. Folk musicians like Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and John Fogerty have been the voice of this country in times of peril over the last century, and have never been afraid to call it as they see it, bringing awareness to the issues the politicians and higher-ups don’t want to let out. Interestingly enough, the voices of the 1900’s and those of the modern era sing largely about the same things.

In 1948, Woody Guthrie, one such folk singer and songwriter, wrote Deportee, a short tune reacting to the plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon, California that killed 28 farm workers from Mexico. These farm workers were being deported at the time of the crash, and went unnamed in the media coverage surrounding the incident, speaking to the dehumanization of immigrants that was common at the time.

Below are the lyrics to the chorus of Deportee:

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita,

Adios mis amigos, Jesus and Maria.

You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane,

And all they will call you will be deportee.

There’s a reason that these lyrics might feel surprisingly relevant to the world today. In the past year since President Trump’s reelection, over 600,000 illegal immigrants have been deported, with the justification that a large number of them are dangerous criminals who are a threat to the safety of American citizens. In a 2015 interview, prior to his first presidential term, Trump asserted that, “The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.” In the eyes of many, these immigrants are aliens first, people second. Considering the blatant dehumanization of Mexican immigrants and the brutality of the recent ICE raids, Woody Guthrie’s lyrics are surprisingly consistent with the modern era, speaking to how little we have progressed as a country in the way we treat those who we are supposed to protect.

Fortunately, the protest music scene from which Deportee emerged has certainly not been forgotten. Several current protest artists have continued in the footsteps of the early folk legends like Guthrie, Seeger, and Dylan, making sure that the issues that plague our country, whether old or new, are recognized. Take a look at the chorus of Martin Kerr’s Immigrants, which highlights similar issues to those revealed in Deportee:

How many immigrants do we deport today?

How many prisons will we fill to bring back the good old days?

And how many families do we break to make us safe?

I guess ‘love your neighbour’ is just something that we say.

Clearly, the voice of the old legends can still be heard today. Some modern protest artists other than Martin Kerr that I would recommend are Jesse Welles, Sasha Allen, Jordan Smart, Luke Nickle, Sam Hodgeson, and Billy Simons, Jr. These artists are enough to get anyone interested in protest folk absolutely hooked. Even if you don’t usually gravitate towards folk-ier sounding music, I would strongly encourage everyone to at least read the lyrics of these artists’ songs. After all, these are the lyrics that have consistently kept our country sane in times of chaos, and sanity certainly seems like something we could use right about now.