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Migrant Farmers of The Depression Era:Then and Now
---Life on migrant farmers was very hard during the Great Depression. Farmers struggled with low prices for the crops they produced all through the 1920s, but after 1929 things began to really down hill. During WWI farmers worked hard to produce record crops and livestock but after the war, when demand fell, prices fell so farmers tried to produce even more to pay their debts. In the early 1930s prices dropped so low that many farmers either couldn't pay rent on their land or went bankrupt and lost their farms. Farmers became looked to the government to step in to keep farm families in their homes but little was done.
---The situation for farmers during the Great Depression got so bad that
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They joined many other migrant workers already there such as Mexican-Americans and Filipino-Americans that were working on the "factory ranches" in California. As the Depression got worse, the growers lowered that wages of workers and laid some off. This hurt the migrant farmers because they were already being paid very little. Between 1929 and 1933, wages went from $3.50 per day $1.90 to a day. Most of these migrant farmworkers did not qualify for government aid because three year residency was required. Migrant Farmworkers had no choice but to walk out of the fields. The Farmworkers in California had as many as 50 strikes in 1933 alone; they told growers, "You can pick your own crops for $1.75 a day!" …show more content…
Farmers from the Midwest fled to California in search of work because they had lost their farms. Farm owners in California had a chance to make a large profit with so much cheap labor available. Conditions during the Great Depression were very hard on migrant farmworkers. With little income, poor living conditions and no other options, these migrant workers arguably saw the worst of the Great Depression[*13]. During the 1930s, some 1.3 million Americans from the Midwest and southwest migrated to California The arrival of Okies and Arkies set the stage for physical and ideological conflicts over how to deal with seasonal farm labor and produced literature that resonates decades later, as students read and watch "The Grapes of Wrath" (John Steinbeck) and farmers and advocates continue to argue over how to obtain and treat seasonal farm
Before the strike for higher wages began, migrant workers worked in very horrible conditions. Men, women, and children would work on these farms for only a dollar an hour. The
Steinbeck meets his standard by celebrating the migrant workers’ drive and sense of community in the face of the Great Depression. The Joad family and many others, are dedicated to conquering all odds: “[t]hus they changed their social life–changed as in the whole universe only man can change” (Steinbeck 196). There are no other options available for these tenant families than to take the trek to California in hopes of finding work. The fears they once had about droughts and floods now lingered with
More and more health-conscious individuals are scrutinizing the source of the food their family consumes. However, even the most conscientious consumer is not fully aware of the exhaustive efforts and struggle to get a juicy, ripe strawberry or that plump tomato in the middle of winter, even in Florida. These foods are harvested and picked mostly by seasonal and migrant farm workers. Migrant workers hail, in large part, from Mexico and the Caribbean, and their families often travel with them. Migrant farm workers must endure challenging conditions so that Americans can have the beautiful selection of berries, tomatoes, and other fresh foods often found at places like a farmer’s market or a traditional super market. Seasonal and migrant farm workers suffer a variety of health problems as a result of their constant exposure to stress, the elements, and chemicals such as pesticides. They are paid minimal wages and are expected to work long hours of strenuous labor for pennies on the dollar per piece or per hour. The migrant families are expected to live in substandard quarters and transported to various work sites in unsafe transportation. The fresh fruits and vegetables consumers purchase with little thought reach supermarkets at a cost that is not reflected in the retail price. This cost is ultimately absorbed by farm workers in Florida and other areas throughout the country, who are among the poorest of American workers.
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. Today my interview with a farm worker shows that farm workers today still face injustices.
The Great Depression, beginning in the last few months of 1929, impacted the vast majority of people nationwide and worldwide. With millions of Americans unemployed and many in danger of losing their homes, they could no longer support their families. Children, if they were lucky, wore torn up ragged clothing to school and those who were not lucky remained without clothes. The food supply was scarce, and bread was the most that families could afford. Households would receive very limited rations of food, or small amounts of money to buy food.
We are lucky to have many talented writers who have successfully taught US history through their outstanding pieces of literature. One writer of this kind is John Steinbeck in the novel In Dubious Battle. It takes place in the 1930’s when Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt was President. The story is set in a small, rural, part of California, which is known as the Torgas Valley. The novel occurred before World War II at the late part of the Great Depression. The US was still recovering from the downfall from most of the American Industries that fell during the Great Depression. Due to the Industrial Revolution, there were no longer any large industries to support the overflowing amount of workers. The farms were the only place that needed a large work force. Therefore many of the workers had to move to the rural areas to support their needs and to survive. The farm owners were now able to cut the wages significantly, knowing that the workers would not quit and they would get all the work done.
This mass migration caused problems that led to the Great Depression. Same in the real world. Every farmer’s farm was torn apart by the damaging winds and the dry weather. The resulting agricultural depression contributed to the Great Depression’s bank closures, business losses, increased unemployment, and other physical and emotional hardships.
The Mexican Migrant Farm Workers’ community formed in Southern California in the 20th century because of two factors that came together: farming emphasized by migrations like the Okie farmers from the East and Mexicans “imported” to the U.S. because of the need for cheap labor as a replacement for Americans during World War II. The migrant labor group formed after an already similar group in the U.S had been established in California, the American farm workers from the East, known as the Okies. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s caused the movement of the Okies to the West and was followed by the transition from American dominant farm labor to Mexican migrant labor. The Okies reinforced farming in California through the skills they took with them, significant to the time period that Mexicans arrived to California in greater numbers. However, the community was heightened by World War II from 1939 to 1945, which brought in immigrants to replace Americans that left to fight in the battlefields.
On the other hand, the farm worker’s movement started with disagreements among workers on the wages earned, harsh treatments and the conditions they worked in. As they grew tired of their situation, the workers attended meetings organized by the National Farm Workers Association(NFWA) to strike against the unjust labor conditions they faced. Primary leaders of the walkout, César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, instructed labor organizers to recruit more members, encouraging field workers, sometimes embarrassing them, to signing into the union. Thus, it created a strong unified stand and because they needed as much aid as they could get to fight against growers with power and money. Mexican Americans began to outcry in the fields, holding up signs to fight against their problems and hopefully negotiate with growers to solving their problems. As they protested, growers ignored their requests and brought more people in busloads from Mexico to replace the workers. Since Mexican American protesters were prohibited to enter the fields hence, they objected in front of markets where grapes were sold. They commenced to boycott grapes in public to aware people of their struggles in the fields by
Second Analysis Paper The migrant tomato farm workers article discusses the aspect of being one of the nations most backbreaking jobs. These tomato workers work for 10 to 12 hours a day picking tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. On a typical day each migrant picks, carries and unloads two tons of tomatoes, and instead of trying to move forward and improve the quality of work and pay the tomato growers, keep migrant workers pay as low as possible. The reason behind this is the pressure the tomato growers face to keep their operating costs low.
A major drought, over-cultivation, and a country suffering from one of the greatest depressions in history are all it took to displace hundreds of thousands of Midwesterners and send them, and everything they had, out west. The Dust Bowl ruined crops all across the Great Plains region, crops that people depended on for survival. When no food could be grown and no money could be made, entire families, sometimes up to 8 people or more, packed up everything they had and began the journey to California, where it was rumored that jobs were in full supply. Without even closing the door behind them in some cases, these families left farms that had been with them for generations, only to end up in a foreign place where they were neither welcomed nor needed in great quantity. This would cause immense problems for their futures. It is these problems that author John Steinbeck spent a great deal of his time studying and documenting so that Americans could better understand the plight of these migrant farmers, otherwise known as "Okies." From touring many of these "Hoovervilles" and "Little Oklahomas" (pg. v) Steinbeck was given a firsthand look at the issues and hardships these migrant workers faced on a daily basis. With the help of Tom Collins, manager of a federal migrant labor camp, Steinbeck began a "personal and literary journey" (pg. v), revealing to the world the painful truth of these "Okies" in his book Harvest Gypsies.
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a realistic novel that mimics life and offers social commentary too. It offers many windows on real life in midwest America in the 1930s. But it also offers a powerful social commentary, directly in the intercalary chapters and indirectly in the places and people it portrays. Typical of very many, the Joads are driven off the land by far away banks and set out on a journey to California to find a better life. However the journey breaks up the family, their dreams are not realized and their fortunes disappear. What promised to be the land of milk and honey turns to sour grapes. The hopes and dreams of a generation turned to wrath. Steinbeck opens up this catastrophe for public scrutiny.
The ten year span of the Great Depression showed families how to live without a stable home or even going to bed without dinner some nights. First off, many people living in the 1930’s were unemployed and homeless, causing them to live in Hoovervilles. The citizens living in Hoovervilles lived unsanitary lives and often faced hunger. In fact, Hoovervilles were built out of unwanted material and provided little shelter. Many put all the blame on the then president, Herbert Hoover, when he refused to help his people through this life changing event. The comparison of Hoover and his poor decisions often got compared to the poor situations that his people had to live in. Hoover should no support during his presidency. Therefore, life during the
Incomprehensibly, The Grapes of Wrath is both a praiseworthy radical investigation of the abuse of horticultural workers and the climaxes in the thirties of a verifiably racist focusing on whites as victimized people. The novel barely specifies the Mexican and Filipino migrant workers who commanded the California fields and plantations into the late thirties, rather intimating that Anglo-Saxo...
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck that exposes the desperate conditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930's live under. The novel tells of one families migration west to California through the great economic depression of the 1930's. The Joad family had to abandon their home and their livelihoods. They had to uproot and set adrift because tractors were rapidly industrializing their farms. The bank took possession of their land because the owners could not pay off their loan. The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California. How they survive the cruelty of the land owners that take advantage of them, their poverty and willingness to work.