Do you think California's dynamic was altered by the "oakies"?

[Taverner]

You know, around the late 30's, Dust Bowl and all that...there were a large amount of migrants...do you think it changed anything and why?

My opinion - like all demographic changes, there were positives and negatives. There are no one way changes...

[begin_within]

1. Didn't they all settle in the central valley?

Aren't Bakersfield and Fresno the capitals of Oklahoma and Kansas?

[Bullwinkle925]

9. not quite - . . .

my grandmother and her sisters (originally from Oklahoma - I'm from Kansas myself) settled in the SF Bay Area - hence, that's how I arrived here as well.

[Richardo]

2. Well I don't think they preferred any kind of wood over another

:)

From Oklahoma = 'Okies'

[Fenris]

5. I'm an Oakie from Muskoagee.

[Joe Fields]

8. bwahahahahaha.....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Richardo]

3. .

:eyes: Dupe.

[jpgray]

4. The more famous ones changed the whole nation's dynamic

[Taverner]

14. Like Merle Haggard and Will Rodgers

My apologies for spelling

[Connonym]

6. Hey Oedi!

Your folks came to CA from the south didn't they?

[Oeditpus Rex]

7. Yup

Arkansas.

But they didn't flee the Dust Bowl or anything. Dad was in the Army and was sent to Ft. Ord.

They told me, though, that when they came out here in 1941, there were still shanties in town.

[bridgit]

13. hubby's dad is from Arkansas too...

[Bullwinkle925]

10. well, since i have been . . .

pondering your question today . . .

there is nothing *special* about California that wouldn't make the state susceptible to anyone's arrival - no matter where the settler/conquerer is from. i'm wondering what prompted your query?
i remember (a brazilian years ago) when my 9th grade class was assigned to read "Two Years Before the Mast" by Richard Henry Dana.
that book began to open my eyes to the impact of foreign *settlement* on the indigenous peoples of any particular area. i'm so grateful to my 9th grade teacher for having assigned that particular reading material.

[Taverner]

16. I know - I was referring to the Dust Bowl-era Migrants from OK, AK and TX

It was a very large demographic shift in California, if anything in terms of population. And it was a sub-culture that still has traces today. You can go to the Central Valley today if you strike up a conversation with the locals, you'd swear you were in East Texas. Many came to California after losing their farms, and because of the New Deal projects, they were able to save enough to buy farms in California. After World War II, many California Farm owners were selling their farms to move to the city, and the "okies", now with a little saved cash were able to buy the farms at a reasonable price and continue doing what they did before nature wreaked havoc on their plans.

Still, many stayed in cities and some even returned.

It's an interesting demographic.

[Whoa_Nelly]

11. Strange question re: Okies and California

Not that your question is meant as a slur, but to this day the word "Okie" is still used as a denigration of farmers in our area of central CA, whether rich or poor...it seems to be synonomous with ignorant.
(Am a native Oklahoman now living in Central CA)

Some info


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okie

Dust Bowl era migrations

In the 1930s, during the Dust Bowl era, large numbers of farmers fleeing ecological disaster and the Great Depression migrated from the Great Plains and Southwest regions to California mostly along historic Route 66. More of the migrants were from Oklahoma than any other state, and a total of approximately 15% of the Oklahoma population left for California.

Ben Reddick, a free-lance journalist and later publisher of the Paso Robles Daily Press, is credited with first using the term Okie, in the mid-1930s, to identify migrant farm workers. He noticed the "OK" abbreviation (for Oklahoma) on many of the migrant’s license plates and referred to them in his article as "Okies." Californians began calling all migrants "Okies," regardless of whether they were actually from Oklahoma.

Many West Coast residents and some politically motivated writers used Reddick's term to disparage these poor, white (including those of mixed American Indian ancestry), migrant workers and their families. The term was made famous nationwide by John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.

Will Rogers, an Okie immigrant to California himself, once remarked jokingly that the Okies arriving in California increased the intelligence of both states.

California's "Anti-Okie Law"

In 1937, California passed the so-called "Anti-Okie Law" (Section 2615 St. 1937, p. 1406) which stated, "Every person, firm or corporation, or officer or agent thereof that brings or assists in bringing into the State any indigent person who is not a resident of the State, knowing him to be an indigent person, is guilty of a misdemeanor," The statute was eventually overturned in 1941 by Edwards v. California (314 U.S. 160). Edwards had brought his brother-in-law from Texas to California and was convicted and sent to prison for six months.

[Taverner]

15. Yeah - I didn't mean it as a slur

It's just that "Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma Migrants" sounds too...academic :)

Okies do make up a good deal of the Central Valley, but all over California as well. If you keep your ear to the ground, you can tell if someone is of "Okie" descent. Usually there is a very light drawl in their speech, and there is a very specific sub-culture in California among them. I've also found them to be more often Democrat than Republican (they are aware they are being fucked by the * administration, and knew it back when Reagan was doing it too.)

You might say California was built by the Okies - definitely the New Deal projects in California were. Those projects began about the time the migrants came in record numbers. There's Okie muscle and sweat in the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.

The irony is that a lot of the descendants of Okies today are the biggest anti-immigration folks in California. I guess it never dawned on some of these folks that their parents and grandparents were immigrants who were treated poorly upon entry to California themselves.

[triguy46]

18. And how is "Okie" relevant 70 years later?

And how is it not a perjorative? Wop, kike, spic, nigger. Rarely do these have 'positive' connotations. I sense a very broad brush being used here. I guess you prefer that to the academic description.

[Taverner]

19. So are you saying Merle Haggard was promoting a pejorative?

And I'm sorry, you can't play the "white male victim" bs with me.

And as to your other question - yes it is still applicable today. The California Okie Sub-culture is just as distinct as some of the other sub-cultures here. California is both a mixing bowl and a salad bowl for sub-cultures. The one thing we all have in common is the fact that at some point, either we, or our parents or grandparents said "To hell with _____, I want a better place to live!"

[triguy46]

24. Certainly a stereotype.

[Joe Fields]

28. Why do you think they're called stereotypes?

[triguy46]

17. Just taken as another slur from the coast...

In Paul Theroux's book, The Old Patagonian Express, he makes the point that when talking to people on his train trip from Boston to Patagonia, they invariably warned him of the people in the "next city." The "next city" residents were invariably criminals, less intelligent, not helpful. He rarely found such to be the case. Applied here, it seems a little extreme to pose that the movement of those displaced from home and looking for work 75 years ago somehow has altered the community consciousness, the Zen of California.

Gosh, just think how cool CA would be today without the dilution of the the cool natives.

I would pose a followup: Has the migration of euro-caucasians across the continent affected the indigenous peoples who happened to be there first? Same question as that of "Oakies (sp)", but perhaps a little closer to home.

Everyone is from somewhere, everyone has to be somewhere.

[Taverner]

21. I call BS on your comparison

The Dust Bowl Migration gave California some great things. The Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge and Caldecott Tunnel would not have happened if not for the sweat of the Okies.

There would have been no one to farm the Central Valley if not for the Okies.

And, California would not have been as diverse if not for the Okies.

Just like I have no fear at all of Immigration from the South, and see only benefits - same with the Dust Bowl migrations.

But to turn a blind eye and say it didn't change anything - that's putting your head in the sand.

[bridgit]

12. nope, 'altered the dynamic' perhaps only in terms of numbers...

the demographic so as to say, but the atmospherics of California altered them i think in the sense you may be referring to

[ronnykmarshall]

20. Those are my peeps.

My grandparents on both sides of my family came to California from OK in the 1930's.

I'm a first generation Californian on my dad's side of the family. My mom was born in California. My dad in Oklahoma.

[bertha katzenengel]

22. Yep. That migration is the reason I'm a Californian. This is a positive!

:bounce:

[Taverner]

23. Awesome!

Again I'm from the school of thought that changes are constant and necessary.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

25. My Grandma was a proud "Okie"...

and yes, she used that word herself. My Grampa was from Kansas. They both found their ways to CA, like so many during that time. To this day, even though I was born and raised in San Francisco, I have a very slight "okie" accent that comes out, especially when I am fired up. And I still say "worsh" instead of "wash". :D

California's history is one of immigration/migration, going back to the Russians and the Spaniards. Each group that finds its way here both brings change and is changed, that is just the nature of the movement of people. I think the farming and agriculture in CA that grew even stronger through the dustbowl migrants was their biggest impact on the state.

[hunter]

26. Having staked out their turf in California somewhat earlier...

...my dad's family was not fond of depression era immigrants.

Dust belt refugees were sorta like people from Mexico, China, Japan, Ireland, Southern Europe, and Jewish or "colored" people. You might want to hire them, but you wouldn't want your kids to marry one.

[zonkers]

27. I can still cruise old parts of CA -- Tulare, N. San Diego, etc. and still feel that old

oakie vibe. The language. The culture. And no doubt, Southern California's liberal, socialist underpinnings is rooted in these migrants.