Last week I finished reading John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) again—decades after my previous reading of that powerful book. Although closely related to my two previous posts, I am writing again about the knotty issue of exploited laborers.
Migrants and Immigrants
“What about the Immigrants?” was the title of my May
5 post, and this one might have been titled “What about the Migrants?” Whereas
immigrants are people who move from one country to another, migrants move
domestically from one region to another in their own country.
What is called the “Great Migration” was one of the largest
movements of people in United States history. Approximately 6,000,000 African
Americans moved from the American South to northern, midwestern, and western
states from the 1910s until the 1970s.
The “Great Okie Migration,” another significant relocation of
people in the U.S., took place in the 1930s as some 2,500,000 people migrated
from the Dust Bowl region of the lower Midwest to California. Many of those
migrants were from Oklahoma and were given the derogatory nickname Okie.
The Migrants in The Grapes of Wrath
As the many of you who have read The Grapes of Wrath
know, Steinbeck’s book is about the Joad family, who traveled from Sallisaw,
Okla., to the San Joaquin valley in California. Much of that trip was going
west on Route 66, the Chicago to Los Angeles road that became a national
highway in 1926.
Google maps indicates that the distance the Joad family
traveled was more than 1,750 miles—and can be made in about 25 driving hours on
today’s Interstate highways. But it took the Joads considerably longer than
that in their rickety old vehicle.
But the worst of Joads’ troubles began after arriving in
California. They were used at the discretion of the landowners and managers and
had absolutely no bargaining rights. There were far too many migrants for the
work available.
Those who did find work at a depressingly low wage one day
might find the wage even lowered the next day as other migrants desperate to
feed their families would agree to work for less.
The Joads’ decision to leave their home in Oklahoma and make
the arduous trip to California was aroused by their vision of Calif. as a place
of abundance for all.
Just before they left their old home, Grandpa Joad exclaimed,
“Come time we get to California I’ll have a big bunch a grapes in my han’ all
the time, a-nibblin’ off it all the time!’’
But Grandpa died long before the Joad family got to
California, and for those who did make it, soon their vision of plentiful
grapes and other fruit turned to grapes of wrath.
The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines grapes of
wrath as “an unjust or oppressive situation, action, or policy that may inflame
desire for vengeance: an explosive condition.”
Those words appear only one time in Steinbeck’s novel by
that name: “in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of
the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for
the vintage.”
The “Grapes of Wrath” in 2022
The current situation in the U.S. is far different, and far
better, than it was in the 1930s.
Now, rather than there being hordes of workers without jobs,
there is a shortage of unskilled laborers. Still, there are far too many
workers with jobs that pay far too little. Laborers deserve a living wage.
William Barber II and Liz Theoharis continue to lead the
Poor People’s Campaign, an anti-poverty campaign that calls for "federal
and state living-wage laws, equity in education, an end to mass incarceration,
a single-payer health-care system, and the protection of the right to
vote."
Here in the Kansas City area, Stand Up KC is an organization of fast food and retail workers who have joined forces to demand better wages and a voice (labor unions) for low-wage workers.**
Those of us who are better off financially need to act in greater
solidarity with those around us who are presently tasting the grapes of wrath.
_____
** Here is
the link to the Poor People’s Campaign, and the link to the blog post I
made about Barber is here.
And you can find more information about Stand Up KC here.
Although I didn't mention it in the above article, I also highly recommend watching (again) "The Grapes of Wrath," the 1940 movie starring Henry Fonda as Tommy Joad and Academy Award winner Jane Darwell as Ma Joad.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the plea for workers, Leroy. You've sent me back in memory to a period in my life of involvement with labor. My Master's degree in sociology focused primarily on labor studies, and I spent a year as a teamster driving a truck and helping run a campaign for the presidency of a large Teamsters' Local. Completing my thesis included not only a lot of reading in working-class and labor union history but also some of the imaginative literature, called at that time, as I recall, "social protest" literature. It included such works as Sinclair's The Jungle, Jack London's The Iron Heel, Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that troubled me at the time was to learn how nearly universally the Christian Church had been unsympathetic to laborers' interests. Notable exceptions, of course, were the Social Gospel Movement of the 19th century, the American Roman Catholic Bishops' call for economic justice, and the Mainline American Protestant leaders' identification with socialism in the 20th. The history helped me understand the communists' hostility towards religion.
Thanks so much, Anton, for sharing your own direct involvement with labor issues as well as reading the "social protest" literature. And, yes, the predominance of "Christians" being "unsympathetic to laborers' interests" and even hostile to the labor union movement did much, as you said, to stir the "communists' hostility toward religion." On the other hand, positive ideas toward laboring people uniting to acquire better salaries and working conditions also stirred opposition toward Marxism.
DeleteI was surprised in re-reading Steinbeck's novel how many times he referred to "reds." Any time the owners/managers hear of someone even questioning wages or wanting more, they call them troublemakers and reds. One of them said, "A red is any son-of-a-bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we’re payin’ twenty-five!" It is interesting, though, that Casy, the former preacher who traveled with the Joads to California, became an advocate for the exploited workers. Here are words from the book just before he is killed: "Casy stared blindly at the light. He breathed heavily. 'Listen,'’ he said. 'You fellas don’ know what you’re doin’. You’re helpin’ to starve kids.’" Here is the response: “Shut up, you red son-of-a-bitch.’’
Leroy,
ReplyDeleteYou introduce many points worthy of response, including your last comment about keeping the poor in mind. Just a vignette, here, about perceptions. I remember my maternal grandmother's response when I referred to our family as "rednecks". I had never felt her anger until then when she declared that if I ever used that word again, there would be severe consequences. It's etched in my emotional memory, you bet. My mistake was to assume that just because Grandpa and Grandma had third or fourth-grade schooling they were, of course, rednecks. Yes, they had "farmer's tans", but that wasn't the point. I learned over time they had been not only hardworking but wise and lived better than many whose lesser work ethics and experiences and Christian faith added up to many problems, though they had problems, too.
Years ago I found James N. Gregory's sociological study, "American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California." It was like reading the framework of my ancestors' history. Leroy, you mentioned the migrations of the 1930's (Mom's family went from West Texas to California in 1938, migrants seeking work). Gregory explains that the migrations were a rising phenomenon from the 1880s to the 1920s as California was opening up and being developed, when migrations crested, and all that before the Depression-era mass migrations. Much of the migration had been seasonal, back-and-forth between California and regions of the South for decades, but it exploded in the thirties.
Gregory points out that many migrants reacted negatively to Steinbeck's overstated depiction of migrating farm-laborers and workless as undereducated, uncouth, of low manners, poor speech, and unskilled; ignorant, illiterate. Many who migrated and discovered the film resented Steinbeck for his lumping everyone together in a demeaning mass - it just wasn't true (p. 111). Were there some? Surely. But most weren't. And the stereotypes stuck with others who assumed their truth.
There's more to it, much more. Gregory's book is worth the read for its insights, including the degree to which Steinbeck himself as novelist and activist overemphasized things to make his points, and the degree to which Director John Ford cut to the chase in order to emphasize the extremes of privation, injustice, and class struggles. The bits about big banking, agribusiness, business interests and law enforcement, prejudices against migrant labor, "white" or otherwise, still have teeth.
Thanks, Jerry, for your instructive comments. I was not aware of "American Exodus" (1989), but it seems to be a helpful book for better understanding the issue at hand. I was interested to see that he made several references to Steinbeck's book. There are always a wide variety of personal characteristics in any demographic, and I can understand why some who fared better and maybe were of a higher caliber than the Joad family would not wish to be seen as being like that family and others depicted the same way by Steinbeck. But while all the "Okies" were not like the Joads, I'm sure many were, and Steinbeck did them a great service by telling their story.
DeleteThanks especially for your final paragraph, which I hope this blog's readers will read carefully and think deeply about.
"Yes! Yes! Why should anyone object to a living wage for all when the job market is red hot?" ~Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with the comments of the much wiser than me and I agree we should do more for All working families.
ReplyDeleteI just now received these personal comments from Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for your comments about 'The Grapes of Wrath,' with which I fully agree.
"My maternal grandfather was the president of a small bank in Olsburg, KS. In 1930, the bank failed and my grandfather had to find work to support his family. They went to Riverside CA, Albuquerque, Black Forest CO (outside Colorado Springs), and finally Idaho Springs CO, where my grandfather worked in the gold mines. One day in Idaho Springs, my mother came home from school and my great grandmother (my grandfather's mother) was frantic as she had absolutely no food to feed the family. (My grandfather was twice widowed, so my great grandmother ran the household.) She was able to borrow some flour from a neighbor and made pancakes for supper. That was all they had. I do not know what they ate the next day, or thereafter. Maybe more pancakes.
"They returned to Kansas just in time for the drought and the great heat waves of 1934 and 1936. Because of the heat, they slept under wet sheets on the porch. Even the trees were dying. It was a terrible time and we have been fortunate to have had it so easy, but, as you point out, there are still plenty of people who are experiencing very tough times. We have an obligation to them."
Thanks for sharing these comments, Eric--and for pointing out that there were people who like the Joads migrated and then stayed in California, but others didn't stay. But on their way there, the Joads met a couple of people who, like your grandparents, didn't stay there but turned back to look for something better far east of California.
DeleteJune's parents were married in December 1933 and my parents were married in May 1935. We heard some of their personal stories about the terrible years of 1934 and 1936. June's parents lived in southwest Missouri, and they told stories about the Dust Bowl conditions they faced there, but my folks lived in northwest Missouri only a few miles from Iowa, and I never heard them say anything about the Dust Bowl there.
Another similar book you will want to read is Kristen Hannah’s, “The Four Winds” Excellent, well researched read.
DeleteThanks, I hadn't heard of that book, but it does seem well worth reading.
DeleteAnd now these personal comments from Thinking Friend Frank Shope in New Mexico.
ReplyDelete"My Grandfather and all the family including my father were in the middle of the Grapes of Wrath. Being driven out of Oklahoma by sands and wind, they arrived in California. Their hopes were to find jobs. However, they found prejudice and a lot of pain.
I often wonder how many of those experiences are true today for the invisible. How many are living out of their car? If they are seen, they are cursed and dismissed. As a nation we want to play and live in prosperity and pleasure. We only intervene in global tragedy when it has the potential of benefiting America."
Thanks, Frank, for sharing your family's experiences as a part of that "Great Okie Migration." You said they arrived in California with hope but "found prejudice and a lot of pain" there--just as the fictional Joad family did in Steinbeck's book. And, yes, even though they are not part of a migrant movement, there are a lot of people today also suffering prejudice and a lot of pain but, sadly, are largely invisible to most of the middle (and above) class who live in the suburbs with big houses and manicured lawns.
DeleteLeroy, as you no doubt know, I follow William Barber closely and particularly enjoy his sermons lately. He has the enchanting habit of making an intentional slip of the tongue to say Tr**** when the biblical context is "Herod." I just finished reading a newer book than Grapes of Wrath entitled The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. Same story of Dust Bowl to California, very well written, readable, and moving.
ReplyDelete