And because of their tradition and their training, they are not migrants by nature. They are gypsies by force of circumstances.
The effects and consequence of the stock market crash and the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression resulted in a mass migration of those with a European background which had not been experienced since the late 1800’s. Steinbeck is pointing out that the very complexion of migrant workers changed during this period, quite literally. The brown-skinned migrants who had filled the low-paying, long-hours work for decades had been replaced by white Indo-Europeans who were not used to migratory existence. Their hope was to find some spot of land and settle down to a normal life once again.
There is no toilet here, but there is a clump of willows nearby where human feces lie exposed to the flies—the same flies that are in the tent.
The second article which comprises this collection is devoted to describing the conditions within which these migrants were expected to work. It is a not a pretty sight. It is a portrait of just how much for the worse the effects of the Great Depression had on people who up until then had been living normal, everyday lives. It is a portrait of a world turned inside out.
The will of the ranch owner, then, is law; for these deputies are always on hand, their guns conspicuous. A disagreement constitutes resisting an officer. A glance at the list of migrants shot during a single year in California for “resisting an officer” will give a fair idea of the casualness of these “officers” in shooting workers.
The description of how the migrant camps were run and the extent of the authority given those running them eventually provides this reminder that if you give a man a gun, a badge and the authority to shoot with little consequence for making bad decisions…there are going to be a lot of bad decisions. This was as true then as it is today. Many lessons have been learned since Steinbeck exposed the dirty little secrets of migrant work camps, but the inherent fascism he describes here and elsewhere remains unaddressed.
The history of California’s importation and treatment of foreign labor is a disgraceful picture of greed and cruelty.
Well into the 21st century, the portrayal of immigrants coming to America to take away jobs, live it up on government assistance and just generally take advantage of while hurting most citizens is alive and well. Steinbeck’s accounting of just the history of immigrant labor in California proves that these fears are far from founded. Steinbeck begins by describing the treatment of the Chinese laborers and then then proceeds to tell a history of those that followed. With more than a hint of sarcasm, the conclusion is evident as the Mexican immigrants follow the same path as those that came before and the one crime that rises above all others:
“As with the Chinese and Japanese, they have committed the one crime that will not be permitted by the large growers. They have attempted to organize for their own protection.”
