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Through secularization

Rancheros claim deed

With land confiscation

We are bound to thee

Driven by force

Lawful decree

Indentured servants

Poor pedigree

We neophytes

Beggars made be

Our own earth pulled from under feet

Lest we forget

Chattel to breed

Disposed hand

Hacienda debris

And twas for naught

Work sets us free

Unmarked graves are buried beneath

On the edge of subsistence

Starving in place

No provisions or parcel

Only a slave estate

As we work on the land

No longer our own

Ghosts haunting the grounds

That we once called home

Translatio imperii

Sangre y oro

Nueva frontera

Alta California

Now dig deeper and weep

Our homelands defiled, barren, and bleak

Remove, rip out root and stem

How heavy the hand that tends the land

Go dig deeper and weep

Inheriting nothing, no land for the meek

Castrate, cut out, lineage be damned

How heavy the hand that tends the land

At the gates of perdition

With no shelter to dwell

We the hopeless peasants

Now condemned to hell

And what dreams we may keep

Locked up inside

Remain out of reach

To those in this life

Now dig deeper and weep

Our homelands defiled, barren, and bleak

Remove, rip out root and stem

How heavy the hand that tends the land

Go dig deeper and weep

Inheriting nothing, no land for the meek

Castrate, cut out, lineage be damned

How heavy the hand that tends the land