Tasting the Grapes of Wrath

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.

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** 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. 

Honoring Cesar Chavez

Tomorrow, March 31, is a state holiday in California, Colorado, and Texas. It is Cesar Chavez Day. And four years ago today, President Obama proclaimed March 31 of each year as Cesar Chavez Day nationwide, although it is not a holiday in the other 47 states.

César Chávez, the Mexican-American migrant farm worker, civil rights activist, and outstanding labor leader, was born on March 31, 1927. He died in 1993.

In his Presidential Proclamation of March 30, 2011, President Obama said,

Cesar Chavez’s legacy provides lessons from which all Americans can learn. One person can change the course of a nation and improve the lives of countless individuals. Cesar once said, “Non-violence is not inaction. . . . Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”

The President went on to say,

From his inspiring accomplishments, we have learned that social justice takes action, selflessness, and commitment. As we face the challenges of our day, let us do so with the hope and determination of Cesar Chavez, echoing the words that were his rallying cry and that continue to inspire so many today, “Sí, se puede” – “Yes, we can.”

The achievements of Chavez were also recognized the year before and the year after his death. In 1992, Chavez was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award, named after a 1963 encyclical by Pope John XXIII calling upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.

Then on September 8, 1994, Chavez was presented posthumously with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton. The award was received by his widow, Helen, whom Chavez married when he was 21 and with whom he had eight children.

There was national recognition of Chavez and his work much before the 1990s, though. In 1969 he became the first Mexican-American to have his picture on the cover of Time magazine.

Last year, the biopic film “Cesar Chavez” was released, and June and I watched it with great interest soon after it came out on DVD. Although panned by some critics for being too hagiographical, we thought it was a good presentation of Chavez’s life and work.

Chávez was born in Arizona, but when he was still a boy his family moved to California and became migrant farm workers. In 1942 when he was 15, César dropped out of school and became a full-time migrant farm worker himself. Except for two unhappy years in the Navy, he worked in the fields until 1952 when he founded a Latino civil rights group.

In the 1950s, Donald McDonnell, a Catholic priest who died in 2012 at the age of 88, introduced Cesar to social justice and the principles of nonviolence, which became the basis for his activities as a labor leader.

In 1962, Chavez co-founded what became, and still is, the United Farm Workers. (The other co-founder was Dolores Huerta, who will soon be 85 and an outstanding woman who also deserves to be honored.)

At the time of McDonnell’s death, Arturo Rodriguez, Chavez’s son-in-law and successor as president of the United Farm Workers, said,

Cesar Chavez tried to live the gospels and the social teachings of his Catholic faith every day, but his career dedicated to service to others all began with the lessons he learned early in life from Father McDonnell.

Cesar Chavez was not without his faults. Still, he did so much to help the impoverished and exploited farm workers, first in California and then across the nation, he is well deserving of the honor given him on Cesar Chavez Day.

ADDENDUM (3/23/26)

It is with sadness that on March 18, 2026, Chavez was publicly charged with grooming and sexually abusing girls and women in the United Farm Workers (UFW) movement. Although it will not be possible to officially change the name of the March 31 holiday or related observances this year, it will be widely called United Farm Workers Day. Chavez, of course, will not be honored at all, and statues of him have been covered with blankets.

As mentioned near the beginning of the above article, Dolores Huerta was the co-founder of the UFW. She will turn 96 on April 10. Ms. Huerta was also sexually abused and even raped by Chavez, but she never spoke of that publicly until last week. She said the work of the UFW was more important than her personal mistreatment by Chavez.