That's a description of the song "Volver a Celaya," by Steve Earle and Los Lobo, in "9 Songs We’re Talking About This Week/Karol G returns, Steve Earle and Los Lobos link up and Temper City climbs the charts" (NYT gift link).
August 10, 2026
"It recounts an immigrant’s life story, told by a Mexican construction worker who toiled, prospered, became an American citizen..."
"... and brought up American children, including a son lost in Afghanistan. 'They were raised to believe in this country,' he sings, heaving a sigh that speaks volumes before continuing, 'that I barely recognize now.' Widowed and alone, all too aware of brutal immigration arrests, he’s going back to his long-ago Mexican hometown."
That's a description of the song "Volver a Celaya," by Steve Earle and Los Lobo, in "9 Songs We’re Talking About This Week/Karol G returns, Steve Earle and Los Lobos link up and Temper City climbs the charts" (NYT gift link).
That's a description of the song "Volver a Celaya," by Steve Earle and Los Lobo, in "9 Songs We’re Talking About This Week/Karol G returns, Steve Earle and Los Lobos link up and Temper City climbs the charts" (NYT gift link).
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89 comments:
...going back to his Mexican hometown...where, with the wealth he earned in the US, he will live like high royalty.
Immigration reform, in lieu of emigration reform, is celebrated in Diversity, labor arbitrage, progressive affordability and availability, gerrymandering, democratic wars, and planned parenthood.
Amigo, you don't like it here? You're free to leave. Buh bye.
They're solid Americans except for that part about entering the country illegally, which is what they're deported for.
Steve Earle = Most famous for the pro-MJ and Vietnam veteran song "Copperhead Road." If you want your music with politics shoved down your throat, have at it.
They should team up with other old timers like Bruce Springsteen and Public Enemy.
…a tale of a political party destroying the lives of millions of people, coaxing them to America with the promise you’ll never have to work again because the gringos will provide for you. It’s just not as satisfying when most Americans aren’t playing along with the fairy tale…
…are the regular immigration arrests still okay or is every immigration arrest a ‘brutal’ immigration arrest? I think I see the problem…
NYT colors the story.
Why would an American citizen care about the arrest and deportation of illegal aliens?
Is it tribe uber alles 24/7/365 for the NYT? Yes, it is.
Now do the story of Sarah Root. Killed by an illegal alien about 5 miles from my office.
She was a brilliant student. 4.0. Even though she was not a Muslim or LBGTQ, she might even have been admitted to the University of Michigan law school.
Can’t be that tough out there. There’s no shortage of Mexican construction workers in my new subdivision. If ICE was really out there kidnapping and killing illegals you would think they would at least turn down the fiesta music on their radios to be somewhat inconspicuous.
Los Lobos are one of my favorite gatherings of superb musicians who can basically do everything you might ask. It hurts my heart to see them drawn to doing the work of the socialists/communists. Twas ever thus. *sighs*
🎵…And his Social Security checks will follow him all the way back home. 🎵
Yeah, sounds like cost of living arbitrage move for retirement.
Earle has long been a far left idealogue in the mold of Springsteen. Knowing this, and the current TDS-riddled state of the entertainment industry, you know what to expect from him. I'm not going to bother listening to it, but from the description, the immigrant character would be in no danger of deportation since he is a naturalized American citizen.
Looking at the blurbs about the rest of the songs on the nine-song list, they seem to continue with today's theme of foreign-sourced music like K-Pop. Many but not all of them, anyway. NTTAWWT.
typo: "Los Lobos" actually
I don't know Steve Earle, but that's a great voice.
Please keep us posted on how well his escape from America goes when he's back home in his hometown in Mexico. Sure hope nothing happens to his Range Rover. Or to him.
When the real-life anti-ICE immigrant stories aren't getting people's sympathy because of annoying details like the person being deported is a violent criminal, it's time to go with a fictional story in a song.
For sometimes political, sometimes not, music coming from the US/Mexico border I greatly prefer Calexico over Los Lobos myself. "The Black Light" is their landmark (not obviously political) album.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calexico_(band)
Althouse; I think you have a reversed "K" and "/" in your link text.
Steve Earle's politics are not my politics. But I've enjoyed his music over the years. He's quite the storyteller. I've also very much enjoyed his books! Some might want to check them out.
Tell me, gullible Althouse, why does he fear an immigration arrest? And it’s hard to feel sorry for someone who is self-deporting.
Gosh what an unremarkable story. I know several Mexican nationals, most for more than 15 years, one for over 40. We helped him get his green card, and he's still here. He has property in Mexico and goes back a few times a year for a few weeks, to tend to it.
So the song lyrics say the subject eventually got his citizenship. That's more than most do. Most don't even bother to get their green card. I think he's moving back to stretch his retirement dollar, too.
The lyrics are kind of ridiculous. His wife is a citizen, he's a citizen, their entire family is American. So why is NICE (National Immigration and Customs Enforcement) invading their homes with guns drawn? The song just skips over that part. Why is his wife shot and killed?
Aside from this, all the time-traveling confuses the shit out of me.
I raised a family but now I'm alone
Two of our boys went to fight in Afghanistan
One of them didn't come home
Okay, so he's an old man, right? And his children have grown up and left the house. But then we have this.
La migra come masked in the night without warning
The children screamed when they knocked the doors down
Whose children? Your children? The grown up children who moved out? The dead ghost from Afghanistan?
Maybe he's talking about other people's children? Did Graciela die of old age? The lyrics make it seem like she died from a NICE raid.
Adios, amigo!
How did he become a US citizen if he was an illegal immigrant?
The song says a contractor sponsored him. So did he go back to Mexico then and re-enter legally to become eligible for citizenship?
When he became a citizen, as part of that process, did he renounce all loyalty to any other country? If so, why is he calling Mexico his home?
Why is fair Graciella named Graciella? Was the contractor also an immigrant? He must have also become a citizen somehow?
Steve Earle has written some really great songs, but this isn't one of them. It's forced and ham-handed. He doesn't sound like he believes it himself. It's propaganda. Steve Earle is repeating dishonest propaganda and calling it a song? Now I'm heaving a sigh.
Maybe he was inspired by Rosie O'Donnell.
Boo hoo. My great grandfather left Greece in the early 1900s. He did so, probably, to avoid the Balkan Wars. He was good looking and intelligent, so life was pretty easy for him in the United States. And then bam! He got deported back to Greece. No due process! No what about my house or business or whatever. So, Mexicans, cry me a river. And my great grandfather probably left some bastard children behind too!
Immigrants, in assimilated proportions, welcome. Illegal aliens, go home. Illegal aliens, who entertain abortive ideation, first-order forcings of excess murder, rape, sodomy, pedophilia, etc, first.
I applaud Steve Earle for his message here, which is that America is no place a Mexican would want to be and life will be so much better in in Mexico. I hope he helps spread the word far and wide.
Then the angels took my Graciela
Nothing else here for me now that she's gone
What about your kids? They're in the USA. You haven't been in Mexico in decades. Right? Why is Mexico home? You love the town you grew up in more than you love your kids in the USA?
The fact of the matter is you pussies are just jealous and afraid of these real men who work hard take care of their families and really know how to enjoy life no matter what kind of b******* gets thrown their way.
You must be so proud to have been born in the wealthiest country on planet Earth and never had to fight your way to someplace better.
I like James Taylor's song Mexico way better. He's fantasizing about Mexico in a good way. It makes me want to visit Mexico! (Which is a fun trip, at least the Maya Riviera).
We did have to bribe a cop to get out of there.
Howard said:
“You must be so proud to have been born in the wealthiest country on planet Earth and never had to fight your way to someplace better.”
Howard, think slowly.
How did “here” get to be “someplace better”?
Extra credit question:
WHO gets to choose which people can come into our “someplace better”: us or them?
Federal prosecutors said on Thursday they will investigate an overnight car blast in central Mexico that injured at least four members of the country's National Guard, with local authorities suspecting the use of explosives in the incident.
Diego Sinhue Rodriguez, governor of the state of Guanajuato, said, "It would seem based on the initial report that there were explosives" involved in the blast, which took place on the outskirts of Celaya, a city long racked by gang violence.
Mexico probes suspected use of explosives in car blast that injured officials.
Not as racist/genocidal as "latinx" but "Los Lobo" still sets my teeth on edge.
It is either "el lobo" or "un lobo" (The wolf or a wolf) or "los lobos" or unos lobos (the wolves or some wolves)
John Henry
...Howard's potty mouth shows how much he cares...
"real men who work hard take care of their families and really know how to enjoy life no matter what kind of b******* gets thrown their way."
How do they feel about anonymous internet tough guys?
So we have to make up stories now to guilt people into not wanting actual immigration policies?
The best book ever written on American Immigration and what led me to Thomas Sowell is is 1976 (or so) book "Ethnic America"
It looks at 9 major ethnic groups and how and why they came to America. What I like about it is that it looks at each group in the same way so it is easy to compare and contrast experiences.
One of the points he makes is that a significant minority of some groups, I specifically remember Italians and Mexicans, come to the US as "sojourners" as he calls them. That is, never with any intention of becoming Americans but with the intention of working and becoming wealthy enough, by old country standards, to go back and build a house and a small business.
That was 50 years ago so no idea how true it is now.
John Henry
They should team up with other old timers like Bruce Springsteen and Public Enemy.
I was worried that Bernie Sanders would blow up all the banks. But he blew up Public Enemy instead.
My son works with several Mexicans who are here legally. They don't like ICE (they are afraid they can make mistakes) but they really hate illegal immigrants.
Bidens illegals. Was this guy one of them?
Interesting how the Black Power movement became a thing, but La Raza completely fizzled out. People didn't care. And brown really hasn't caught on as a skin color. I get brown at the pool, man. The color brown needs to hire a PR firm, if it wants to get anywhere in racial identification and strife. You're not even capitalized. Sad!
I didn't listen to the music, but I read the lyrics. They're a bit too on the nose, especially the part about the two sons who joined the service and one died in Afghanistan. I suppose it's possible but, as a general rule, the sons of successful contractors like the sons of successful musicians do not sign up for the army. Can anyone name any child of a Hollywood or music celebrity who ever distinguished themselves with military service. Those who die young out there die from od's and not from IED's.
Steve Earle wrote a ham-handed Marxist political song? Well knock me over with a wet noodle!
Wages are subject to the laws of supply and demand. Let's not pretend there was no cost to Americans when corporations shipped jobs overseas and that there's no cost to massive importation of cheap labor to do the jobs that can't be outsourced overseas, like construction. That is what it's really all about, driving down wages. Let's not pretend it's some kind of humanitarian program.
American workers are getting screwed and the people doing the screwing are vilifying American workers so they can feel better about what they are doing.
All my Steve Earle music is on cassettes.
We have immigrations laws.
Biden and his cabal broke those laws.
Leftists cheered - and now they use emotional blackmail to get what they want.
Illegals voting - illegals stealing our taxes.
"The children screamed when they knocked the doors down
The only illegal immigrants the left hates are Cubans who try to escape Communism. "Send them back," the lefties scream. "Send them back to paradise!"
I clicked on the "live performance" button, but it turned out to have been previously recorded, very disappointing.
For a moment there, I thought it might be a real story.
I suspect that Katy Moffatt did it better 32 years ago with "Rosas Favorite Son" on her Midnight Radio album.
I've not listened to Los Lobos so maybe they are better than Katy. Hard to imagine anyone could be, though.
Here's a more recent version https://youtu.be/2KmxUGCbXEE?si=uC1VA892DFqQNmCb
Great singer and a great album. I especially like the title track Midnite Radio.
John Henry
Disparate rules for me and thee is a popular tune in the quarry.
"And his Social Security checks will follow him all the way back home."
As they should if, in line with popular myth, SS is just a social insurance program giving back what was paid in.
If, on the other hand, it was recognized as the welfare program it technically and legally is, maybe not.
John Henry
I don't think I ever really listened to the Copperhead Road lyrics, but I really like it.
"They don't like ICE (they are afraid they can make mistakes) but they really hate illegal immigrants."
If the illegals weren't here, they wouldn't have to worry about ICE at all.
"It recounts an immigrant’s life story, told by a Mexican construction worker who toiled, prospered, became an American citizen and brought up American children,
I'm curious, did he come here legally? Or is he an illegal who took advantage of the 1986 Amnesty?
'They were raised to believe in this country,' he sings, heaving a sigh that speaks volumes before continuing, 'that I barely recognize now.'
Guess what. We actual real American citizens, who didn't need an amnesty, and don't have a "home town" in another country, don't "recognize" the "America" that you foreigners are trying to create as you and the leftists destroy the real America.
all too aware of brutal immigration arrests
If your concern is with illegal aliens, not Americans, then I'm really happy to see you go. The "brutal" arrests will stop when the criminals have left
Steve Earle is an all-time great singer/songwriter, but a real commie politically.
His son Justin Townes Earle seems to have inherited the musical talent gene. Unfortunately also inherited the drug abuser gene, and is no longer with us.
Howard said...
The fact of the matter is you pussies are just jealous and afraid of these real men who work hard take care of their families and really know how to enjoy life no matter what kind of b******* gets thrown their way.
What Howard can't give a shit about is the Americans who teh illegals compete with.
The ones who wages they lower, whose jobs they steal, whose rent they drive up.
Because Howard is a worthless piece of shit who takes all teh benefits of being American, and then refuses to honor any moral duty he has to his follow Americans who the illegals harm.
Because it's more important to Howard to have a cheap illegal to use.
You must be so proud to have been born in the wealthiest country on planet Earth and never had to fight your way to someplace better.
I am around that I am descending from people who had the good sense to come to America legally.
Howard is apparently a communist who "thinks" that parents shouldn't be able to do anything for their kids to make them better off, and that all inheritances are illegitimate.
IOW, Howard is really stupid.
Yes, Howard, there are two groups of people in the world, Americans, and non-Americans. And I value the life and joy of random Americans over the life and joy of random non-Americans.
Because that's what "citizenship" MEANS
William: "Can anyone name any child of a Hollywood or music celebrity who ever distinguished themselves with military service. Those who die young out there die from od's and not from IED's."
You don't know how on the nose your comment was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Townes_Earle
As was already noted, many immigrants only wanted to earn enough money to go back to their homelands and buy a farm or shop and raise a family.
The country "that I barely recognize now" sounds doubly false. First, it sounds more like something an American liberal might say, rather than an illegal immigrant. Wasn't INS always on the lookout for illegals even before ICE was created? Second, it's rhetorical and polemical, not based on life experience. Does anyone "barely recognize" America now?
If America is so horrible, wouldn’t you want to leave?
This made me recall so. A few years ago I was working with a granite fabricator. Clearly run and owned by a Hispanic family.
All legal engllisg.l
"Because Howard is a worthless piece of shit who takes all teh benefits of being American, and then refuses to honor any moral duty he has to his follow Americans who the illegals harm."
Howard is infected with the leftist mind virus that informs all leftards that laws only need to be followed when one agrees with them.
"It recounts an immigrant’s life story..."
Do fictional people have "life stories"?
Bob Boyd: "massive importation of cheap labor to do the jobs that can't be outsourced overseas, like construction."
I was briefly amused, a few months ago, hearing my leftist neighbors fuming about the supposed rise in agriculture prices, supposedly due to the reduced availability of (cheap) immigrant field labor. These exact same people were always going on about field working conditions and wages. The dissonance was so strong that even they couldn't ignore it, and those conversations soon vanished.
On the legal immigration side, Silly Valley is belatedly taking notice of the quarter-million or so H1B visa employees that have flooded in over the last five years. Parents who moved here for the schools are noticing that their kids can't find jobs here.
Mason: No, they don't. But the audience is like Reddit, where people get into long arguments about whether or not some fictional character "really" has some attribute or other, or why they "did" some thing. To which the only correct answer is, "Because the author thought it was a good idea."
William said...
"as a general rule, the sons of successful contractors like the sons of successful musicians do not sign up for the army."
That hasn't been my experience. A lot of contractors and construction workers in general are vets themselves and their sons often follow in those footsteps.
I don't know how you put construction contractors in the same group as music and movie celebrities. As a contractor myself I will tell you, I've never had a mob of screaming groupies throw their panties at me after I finished framing a wall. Even though it was a indisputably a thing of beauty that would be a joy forever, nobody was waving lighters and chanting, "One more nail! One more nail!"
Why not? It's a mystery. I chalk it up to a lack of sensitivity and appreciation for the finer things amongst the general population.
"the lyrics [are] a bit too on the nose, especially the part about the two sons who joined the service and one died in Afghanistan."
That's what I thought. The whole song is very contrived. A wank fest.
Peach peachy 11:57
(me) (on my phone)
ok -All legal citizens at this fabrication shop. anyway -
One of the employees - the man who did measuring - told me he was ready to retire and building a home in Mexico where he would retire.
He told me how cheap it is to build a mansion there.
huh.
"But the audience is like Reddit, where people get into long arguments about whether or not some fictional character "really" has some attribute or other..."
While ignoring the real-life illegal alien rapists and murderers that leftist judges set free to prey on innocent Americans, no doubt.
Bob Boyd said...
“I've never had a mob of screaming groupies throw their panties at me after I finished framing a wall.”
Well, not exactly throw her panties at me, but the wife was pretty happy when I framed some storage rooms in the basement once.
I live in SoCal. There's a massive support for Trump among Mexican (legal) immigrants who aren't in the entertainment and academic communities as well as those from Philippines and elsewhere.
"Why is his wife shot and killed?"
She isn't. Or rather, wasn't. The "angels took her", not La Migra. So, like a lot of successful, older Americans, he's retiring in Mexico. Which will be easy for him, since he still has Mexican citizenship, having been born there. If he didn't, he would have to apply for a permit, and pay a bunch of fees, and likely a few bribes.
Any Guatemalan bands in Mexico doing their own version of the song?
I barely recognize it myself and I don't mean politically.
Somebody needs to change Howard's diaper today.
Immigrant or illegal alien? For the love of ICE, illegal aliens are selected through judicial review, not subject to social justice or prosecutorial indiscretion, not under policies of Diversity (e.g. racism), Equivocation, and Indoctrination.
Emigration reform to mitigate progress and collateral damage at both ends of the bridge and throughout. Keep the dream of community and organization a viable choice.
#HateLovesAbortion
A Mexican who applied for a green card, then came to the U.S. legally is a Folk Tale.
Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill aruff.
Trump carried the Mexican American vote. They hate the wetbacks. Hate them.
“Copperhead Road” was a good song. Earle is a hardcore Marxist. Fuck ‘im.
I am fond of Los Lobos and their music… “Kiko” is a great album, one of my faves, but they’ve been big promoters/proponents of Aztlan for decades, and they can KMA based solely on that.
Nicely done, Disparity of Cult.
Call me when Earle has written and performed a song about the Americans in my region who were laid off from well paying jobs at pork processing plant and were replaced my Mexicans working for 1/3 the old rate.
Until 1991, when Bush One destroyed immigration control, the vast majority of farm workers (construction certificates didn't usually qualify) came here seasonally, made very good money for living in Mexico, then left. After a certain number of years, they could apply for citizenship the right way, and some did, and some didn't.
It worked well for American farmers and Mexican farmhands, many of whom are now American citizens. Their sons often join the military. Bless them.
Then I watched the big employers in my little Florida adopted hometown prosper for the few, including the Church, under the illegal deluge. The American retirees and the legal immigrants watched it all fall apart. The town is now riddled with illegal gangbangers. Nobody is more endangered and ashamed than the legal Mexican immigrants.
You want that, you get that. White educated leftist idiots made it happen, as they daily drove their kids far away to Tampa and Clearwater to avoid the gangster invasion in the grade schools and high schools they had once attended, using fake excuses that their kids needed specialized public options. Liars. One I knew commuted to an "enviromental" program more than two hours around trip, make that four for the drivers so mommy and daddy could feel good about their choices. She could have walked to the local schools, and they mocked the private ones and opposed charters. And vacationed overseas. What immoral liars.
Calexico huh? Better than Los Lobos. Strong words John Henry! I’m on it. Will report.
I wrote about Calexico, so blame me rather than John Henry.
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