‘Do Re Mi’: How Woody Guthrie predicted the immigrant crisis
American politics is rarely harmonious, but with the current onslaught of riots, protests, and the stripping away of civil liberties for so many US citizens, it is increasingly complex to keep track of all the political news emanating from the United States.
One person who was always well-attuned to the goings-on of his nation, however, was the folk pioneer Woody Guthrie.
Penning some of the most iconic and ultimately patriotic American folk songs of all time, the Oklahoma-born songwriter left a colossal impact on the cultural landscape of the United States, and his legacy certainly still lives on today.
Folk music is the sound of ordinary people through the ages, with songs passed down over hundreds of years via battered books and word-of-mouth. Guthrie used this fact to his advantage, placing working-class people and grassroots struggles at the forefront of his musical output. He was a voice for the voiceless and an unwavering beacon of support for the working people of the world, regardless of their race, gender, or nationality. In that sense, Guthrie was operating decades ahead of his time, so much so that many Americans still haven’t cottoned on to his core message.
Take his most iconic track, for instance. ‘This Land Is Your Land’, although often co-opted as a mindless patriotic anthem, is a defiant message against borders, nationalism, and racism, written at a time when all of those issues were rife throughout virtually all aspects of American culture and society. Guthrie was a staunch advocate for solidarity, unity, and togetherness among all working-class groups, and that certainly included those without US citizenship.
“If you ain’t got the do re mi, boys You ain’t got the do re mi. Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee”.
‘Do Re Mi’ – Woody Guthrie
In the modern age, President Donald Trump – along with a growing number of right-wing populists around the globe – is waging a war on immigration. What began as blatant xenophobia against Mexican immigrants in the US has now descended into a Gestapo-esque system of plain-clothes agents black-bagging anybody they deem un-American, whether those people are legal, documented citizens or not.
It is an incredibly dark time for the United States at the moment, but the nation’s horrific treatment of migrants is certainly not a modern phenomenon. In the 1930s, for instance, a series of storms and harsh weather conditions, known as the Dust Bowl period, forced many people from the Southern Plains to seek refuge in Los Angeles. However, the police force in Los Angeles implemented an illegal border, referred to as a ‘bum blockade’, to prevent migrants who were arbitrarily seen as undesirable from entering the state.
In response to this treatment of people who had fled their homes for the opportunity to live and work in relative harmony, Guthrie penned the song ‘Do Re Mi’, which featured on the 1940 record Dust Bowl Ballads. A cautionary tale based on the experiences of the Dust Bowl migrants, He sang about the lack of opportunities in California, telling folks to turn back to places like Texas or Oklahoma.
“It’s all about the migrants being illegally kept out of California in the Dust Bowl time in the ’30s,” Anna Canoni, Guthrie’s granddaughter and vice-president of the Woody Guthrie Foundation, once shared. “So if you ain’t got the do-re-mi, then you’d better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee. Because you won’t be able to get into the Garden of Eden: California. So it’s all about that time period, and the illegal border.”
Not only did Guthrie predict the prolonged discrimination against immigrants, both legal and undocumented, in the United States, but he unknowingly warned against the rise of the Trump dynasty too, penning ‘Old Man Trump’ about the racist attitudes of Donald Trump’s father. The fact that Guthrie’s discography continues to reflect the issues of modern-day America is depressing, to say the least, but it also speaks to the seminal songwriting quality of the folk musician. If only more American politicians would pay attention to his lyrics.
