In the mid-1930s, there was a large influx of migrants from Midwestern states into California. Large numbers of farmers fleeing the Great Depression and drought within the Midwest sought a new life in California. Despite heavy advertising within drought stricken states that affirmed pickers were in high demand in the San Joaquin valley, migrants received no warm welcome in Kern County upon their arrival. The term “okie” was used by California residents and some politically motivated writers to stigmatize these poor, white migrant workers and their families. The children also faced discrimination while in Kern County public schools.…
The overall approach tries to show that the migrants were of many different background and experiences, and argues against the hillbilly portrayal of the migrants. Gregory’s book is a general survey of the Dust Bowl migration that challenges the previous portrayals of this event, and tries to provide an objective portrayal of them. The central theme of the book focuses around the Okie experience with discrimination from the local Californians. Gregory brings up how many migrants came with a…
8.Migrant camps were located next to irrigation ditches and were unsanitary. The workers had to moved frequently to follow crop harvests. Their houses were built from scavenged scraps and they often lived without any running water or electricity. 9.An Okie is a resident or a native of Oklahoma.…
For this assignment I have chosen to look more in depth at Immigration in the late nineteenth century until early twentieth century, and how this life changing experience was handled by different ethnic groups. In turn I will compare and contrast the essays of Victor Greene and Mark Wyman who both portray immigration in their own light. Victor Greens’s essay titled “Permanently Lost: The Trauma of Immigration” uses tools such as music and ballads to display how immigration effected certain ethnic groups and their families. While Mark Wyman’s “Coming and Going: Round - Trip to America” focuses on pamphlets given out in the workforce and more concrete evidence as to how and why immigration took place the way it did. To my mind Wyman’s use…
When they were moving they had to leave their homes most people left whatever they had behind and if they didn’t leave what they had behind they would pack it in their cars and leave. When moving to other states families lost their jobs and were living off of beans, cornbread, and milk and were starving and would do anything for food. This period of time was a very rough period. Most of all of the families had to migrate during The Dust Bowl.…
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848. James Marshall, former carpenter, was working on a sawmill with John Sutter when he discovered a gold nugget in the water flow through the mill’s tailrace. Even though Sutter made all his employees swear to not tell anyone, soon multiple people knew. As the news spread about the gold thousands of immigrants started to head to California. This included many people from the US and some even from other countries.…
People in the 1930’s pointed to the drought and dust as the cause of the hardship, but dust itself did not stomp all over the migrants, kill their families and starve their children. Dust would have been an vanquishable obstacle were it not for the greed shown to the migrants by the farmers in California. Through charity and cooperation, the migrants could have overcome the obstacles they faced in California. The migrants…
Migrants from the Great Plains went West, mainly to California, for work. The Californians thought they were losing part of their wages to migrants, which lead them to go on…
In the article “Mass Exodus From the Plains”, 2.5 million people left the Plains and migrated to the west coast because of the relentless dust storms and drought. If that didn’t drive the remaining people away to California, then certainly the bank foreclosures did. Out of the 2.5 million who had left the Plains, 200,000 of them had moved to California. Unfortunately, their movement wasn’t accepted in California- the police chief of California went so far as to call forth 125 policemen to turn away the “undesirables” at the border.…
These men are selfish and unwilling to share their success with the migrant workers. The Californians assume the Oklahoma immigrants were the lowest of the low and gave them the nick name “Okies”, which translate for scum. These men were harsh and unsympathetic to the migrants’ workers because they all feared them. This fear causes them to protect their land. “It ain’t that big.…
Findings Throughout my research process, I found various sources that enhanced how Mexican immigrants have contributed to the Los Angeles economy. To begin, Martin V. Torres in Indispensable Migrants expresses how Mexican immigrants had a huge role in the making of modern Los Angeles. He argues that during the beginning of the last century, Mexican labor was crucial in the city’s railways, agricultural fields, and nascent light industry. Today, although Mexicans do not occupy the most prestigious positions in Los Angeles or the city’s financial center.…
These seekers had experienced a lack of quality of life and other problems, such as venereal disease, drug and alcohol abuse, and violence—“Claim jumpers,” which identified “men who robbed successful miners of their gold or stole their claim papers” (Gillon, pg.484). Moreover, racism was also one of the most significant problems that seekers had experienced. As mentioned to the foreign migrants, there were the undercurrents of tension among different races, for instance, “blatant forms of racism against the growing Chinese population” (Gillon, pg.485). Also, there was a conflict between the local and nonlocal populations in which these new people seized the local people’s lands and occupations for making their new future in California.…
In the year 1949 approximately 80,000 individuals immigrated into California. These men became known as the infamous ‘49ers. Word of the gold continued to spread like wildfire and miners from China, England, and Australia began showing up in California with the hopes of becoming rich too. By 1852, the year the gold rush peaked, the vast majority of people who came to the “Land of Gold” were men who had left their families and lives behind. Once the husbands had left women were forced to take care of the homestead, farms, and children by…
However, the American ideal at the time was that the family would take care of them and that helping them was not in the government's jurisdiction. Many families were without jobs and without homes. They were moving west in the hope that there would be jobs. Quite a few of these hopeful migrants are from the Dust Bowl…
Hector St. Jean De Crevecoeur, a Frenchman living in America, wrote many letters to Europeans telling them of the great opportunities for immigrants to America and its generous, welcoming, paternal government. However, a study of the farm workers' experiences in America does not always paint a rosy picture. In particular, John Steinbeck and Cesar Chavez portrayed the dire circumstances of farm workers during the Great Depression (1930's) and the 1960's. To begin, Crevecoeur states in his letters that there's opportunity for everyone in America. Those who were sober and hard working were quickly given jobs.…