Dust Bowl MigrationOkie use' ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you're a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, it's the way they say it.“

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Ch. 18

Immigrant History in California

• Many minority immigrants faced discrimination in California.

• Californians felt that immigrants would:

▫ fail to assimilate

▫ steal jobs

▫ commit crimes

Chinese Immigrants

• The Chinese Massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles, California, led to the largest mass lynching in the history of the United States.

Mexican Immigrants

• Operation Wetback (1954-1962) resulted in the deportation of more than a million Mexican citizens living in the United States. The program resulted in the death of 88 individuals left to fend for themselves in the Sonoran desert.

Japanese Immigration

• The Alien Land Law (1913) kept Japanese-Americans from owning farm land in California.

Okie Immigration

• From 1935 through 1939 more than 300,000 people fled Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and other Midwestern states to seek employment in California.

The Dust Bowl

• The Okies left the Midwest states to escape ecological and economic devastation. Outdated agricultural methods, erosion, drought, and unusually high winds, left farms in ruin.

Okie Discrimination

• The “Bum Blockade” (1936), set-up by the Los Angeles Police Department , was designed to keep Okies from entering California.

• The California Citizens Council fought for laws that discriminated against Okies.

• Okies, unlike Mexican farmworkers, stayed in the state; this fostered more bigotry against them.

Okie Discrimination

World War II

• The onset of World War II kick-started the economy. Jobs in California were plentiful. The mass migration from the Midwest ended.

Okie Influence on California Culture

• Dorthea Lange’s photographs of Okies in California are considered American classics.

John Steinbeck’s Novels

• Steinbeck’s novels featuring Okies were best-sellers.

Okie Music

• Okie musicians, like Woody Guthrie, were featured on California radio stations. Guthrie fought for the rights of Okies and other people who faced discrimination.

Okie Music

• Guthrie’s music was a strong influence on the folk and protest singers of the 1960’s.

The Bakersfield Sound

• Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, both children of Okie immigrants, developed the “Bakersfield Sound.” The Bakersfield Sound, a country music genre featuring elements of Okie music, was a rejection of the slickly-produced Nashville Sound.

The Bakersfield Sound Influence

• “'Bakersfield' really is not exclusively limited to the town itself but encompasses the larger California country sound of the Forties, Fifties and on into the Sixties, and even the Seventies, with the music of Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, the Burrito Brothers and the Eagles -- they are all an extension of the 'Bakersfield Sound' and a byproduct of it.”

-- Dwight Yokham

Okie Food

• Inexpensive “good ol’ plain cookin’” such as biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, cornbread, etc.