Portside

The Latin-Grammy nominated group La Santa Cecilia is composed of immigrants, children of immigrants and dreamers. Ice El Hielo is a play on the acronym of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which deported over 400,000 people last year, and the Spanish words for ice. This video was produced with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and noted filmmaker Alex Rivera. NotOneMoreDeportation.com is a project of NDLON meant to foster collaboration between individuals, organizations, artists, and allies to expose, confront, and overcome unjust immigration laws.

Sign to stop deportations. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.

Jamaica Farewell is a nostalgic song about the beautiful women of Jamaica. It was written by Brooklyn native Lord Burgess, son of a U.S. father and Barbadian immigrant mother. Belafonte's 1957 version brought the song to world attention; it has been translated into many languages and covered by such singers as Sam Cooke, Carly Simon and Sting. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.

 

The 'Drinking Gourd' refers to the stars of the Big Dipper constellation, pointing the North Star (Polaris). The song was reportedly used as a kind of Underground Railroad map guiding the route of escaped slaves to freedom. It was first published in 1928. Lee Hayes published the song in 1947 in something like its current form in the People's Songs Bulletin. In the following decades the song featured prominently in the civil rights movement and in the folk song movement. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.

 

No Irish Need Apply is performed by Pete Seeger, Earl Robinson, Odetta, Ronnie Gilbert, Alan Lomax, Tommy Makem and Chet Washington on the album Songs of the Working People -- From the American Revolution to the Civil War (1987). For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.

 

A nostalgic Yiddish song about 'The Old Country,' here performed by the Limeliters in Yiddish and with English translation and wry commentary by Lou Gottlieb. Rumania, Rumania was written by Aaron Lebedeff, who immigrated to the United States in 1920. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.

 

The musical West Side Story is a Romeo and Juliet crossing rival Italian and Puerto Rican gangs in New York City. In the song America, George Chakiris and Rita Moreno debate whether life is better in the adopted country or the native land. The music is by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.

 

Lead rapper will.i.am (William Adams) introduces this 2011 performance in New York's Central Park with an impassioned explanation of the debt the Black Eyed Peas owes to immigrants and their supporters: fellow BEP Allan Pineda (apl.de.ap) immigrated "from a third world country."  Where Is the Love was written by Ralph MacDonald and William Salter, and originally performed by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.