The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath

In a three-year period in the 1930s, somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 Okies arrived in California. These migrant farmworkers were known as “Okies” because many of them came from the state of Oklahoma, in addition to many other states in the South and Midwest. Farmers had over-tilled and over-farmed the land in the area out of a demand to produce more crops to sell, resulting in erosion of the top soil. When a severe drought hit the Great Plains area in the 1930s, the soil blew away, creating dust storms—better known as the “Dust Bowl”—and leaving the farmers without their lands or a source of income. These largely white migrants sought refuge in California, where they could use their skills as farmers to plow the land in the state’s expanding agricultural sector. They settled in ramshackle squatters’ settlements that were colloquially known as “Little Oklahomas” and “Hoovervilles.”

Wollenberg’s introduction hints at a number of issues that appear throughout Steinbeck’s essays. Among them are racial tensions and xenophobia. Steinbeck was a white reporter writing about not only the white migrants from the Midwest, but also the Asian and Latino farmworkers in California, whom he referred to as “peon labor”—a designation he did not give to the white Okies. Steinbeck’s previous novel, Tortilla Flat, was later criticized for its stereotypical portrayal of Mexican Americans. Although the articles in this book predominantly focused on the Okies, some sections focused on the immigrant workers that preceded the migrants from the Midwest. Steinbeck sympathized with these immigrant workers, but he reflected racial tropes when he referred to the Filipino workers as “little brown men” (55). It’s also telling that while Steinbeck quoted some of the white migrants that he met in California, he used no direct quotes from the Asian or Latino farmworkers, which would seem like an oversight, as we are left with only Steinbeck’s interpretation of their struggles instead of their direct perspective. Nowadays, there is a greater understanding within the journalistic community of how the identity of the reporter and the subject can impact one’s reporting.

The far more overt and insidious racism discussed in this introduction was the treatment of foreign-born workers by the local, native-born population, which decried the immigrants for supposedly taking away jobs from white workers, leading to anti-immigrant riots and restrictive immigration laws. However, xenophobia extended beyond race. Native Californians heavily discriminated against the impoverished white migrant workers from other states, which further degraded their unjust situation. In later articles, Steinbeck saw a path forward for the white Okies to be valued California residents free from the sting of discrimination and extraordinarily low-wage work. However, he saw no such path forward for the immigrant laborers from Mexico, East Asia, and the Philippines.

Another issue Wollenberg highlights is that Steinbeck and Collins believed the migrant farmworkers deserved their own land because they had been farmers back in the Midwest. They were liberal proponents of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was a public works program that promised to create jobs and spur economic growth during the Great Depression. Both men were sympathetic to the migrant farm workers’ situation and wanted to wake up America to the laborers’ plight. Steinbeck went beyond his role as an objective reporter, promising Collins, “I shall be very careful to do some good and no harm” to the farm workers’ cause (ix).

Steinbeck was concerned about the power of large-scale farm growers, who exploited farm workers and shut down any attempts among the laborers to organize for more dignified working and living conditions. The poverty of the migrant farmworkers and their vulnerability to exploitation by large corporations eerily echoes the harsh conditions facing immigrant laborers in California today. Despite Steinbeck’s calls to treat migrant workers with respect and for workers to organize for better labor standards, many migrant workers in the US still languish in today’s agricultural system—nearly 90 years later.

Lastly, the description of Collins and Steinbeck’s relationship demonstrates the unorthodox and temporary nature of the relationship between reporters and their sources. A reporter may become friendly with an interview subject, particularly when one spends several days or months with a source—as Steinbeck did when he traveled by truck with Collins across the Central Valley. Steinbeck relied on Collins to connect him with the subjects he interviewed and to supply the facts for his articles, which would inspire The Grapes of Wrath. Yet, after all this time, Steinbeck simply moved on to another story. Their relationship was invaluable and necessary, but not a permanent one.