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Poll(); The Migrant Experience A complex set of interacting forces both economic and ecologicalbrought the migrant workers documented in this ethnographic collectionto California. Following World War I, a recession led to a drop in the market price offarm crops and caused Great Plains farmers to increase theirproductivity through mechanization and the cultivation of more land. This increase in farming activity required an increase in spending thatcaused many farmers to become financially overextended. The stockmarket crash in 1929 only served to exacerbate this already tenuouseconomic situation. Many independent farmers lost their farms whenbanks came to collect on their notes, while tenant farmers were turnedout when economic pressure was brought to bear on large landholders. The attempts of these displaced agricultural workers to find other workwere met with frustration due to a 30 percent unemployment rate. Frank and Myra Pipkin being recorded by Charles L. Todd at ShafterFSA Camp, Shafter, California, 1941. Photo by Robert Hemmig.At the same time, the increase in farming activity placed greaterstrain on the land. As the naturally occurring grasslands of thesouthern Great Plains were replaced with cultivated fields, the richsoil lost its ability to retain moisture and nutrients and began toerode. Soil conservation practices were not widely employed by farmersduring this era, so when a seven-year drought began in 1931, followed bythe coming of dust storms in 1932, many of the farms literally dried upand blew away creating what became known as the "Dust Bowl." Driven bythe Great Depression, drought, and dust storms, thousands of farmerspacked up their families and made the difficult journey to Californiawhere they hoped to find work. Along with their meager belongings, theDust Bowl refugees brought with them their inherited culturalexpressions. It is this heritage that Charles L. Toddand Robert Sonkincaptured on their documentation expedition to migrant workcamps and other sites throughout California. Why did so many of the refugees pin their hopes for a better life onCalifornia? One reason was that the state's mild climate allowed for along growing season and a diversity of crops with staggered planting andharvesting cycles. For people whose lives had revolved around farming,this seemed like an ideal place to look for work. Popular songs andstories, circulating in oral tradition for decades (for more on thistopic see "The Recording of Folk Music in Northern California" by SidneyRobertson Cowell),exaggerated these attributes, depicting California as a veritablepromised land. In addition, flyers advertising a need for farm workersin the Southwest were distributed in areas hard hit by unemployment. Anexample of such a flyer, publicizing a need for cotton pickers inArizona, is contained in Charles Todd's scrapbook. Finally, the country's major east-west thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 66 --also known as "Route 66," "The Mother Road," "The Main Street ofAmerica," and "Will Rogers Highway" -- abetted the westward flight ofthe migrants. A trip of such length was not undertaken lightly in thispre-interstate era, and Highway 66 provided a direct route from the DustBowl region to an area just south of the Central Valley of California.  Myra Pipkin, age 46, holding grandchild, Shafter FSA Camp, Shafter, California, 1941. Photo by Robert Hemmig.Although the Dust Bowl included many Great Plains states, the migrantswere generically known as "Okies," referring to the approximately 20percent who were from Oklahoma. The migrants represented in Voices fromthe Dust Bowl came primarily from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, andMissouri. Most were of Anglo-American descent with family and culturalroots in the poor rural South. In the homes they left, few had beenaccustomed to living with modern conveniences such as electricity andindoor plumbing. The bulk of the people Todd and Sonkin interviewedshared conservative religious and political beliefs and wereethnocentric in their attitude toward other ethnic/cultural groups, withwhom they had had little contact prior to their arrival in California. Such attitudes sometimes led to the use of derogatory language andnegative stereotyping of cultural outsiders. Voices from the Dust Bowlillustrates certain universals of human experience: the trauma ofdislocation from one's roots and homeplace; the tenacity of acommunity's shared culture; and the solidarity within and friction amongfolk groups. Such intergroup tension is further illustrated in thispresentation by contemporary urban journalists' portrayals of rurallife, California farmers' attitudes toward both Mexican and "Okie"workers, and discriminatory attitudes toward migrant workers in general. Todd and Sonkin also held recording sessions with a few Mexicanmigrants living in the El Rio Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp. Unfortunately, the glass-based acetate discs on which the Spanish-language musicalperformances were recorded did not survive. However, photos from El Rioand interviews with Jose Floresand Augustus Martinez provide a glimpse into the lives and culture of non-Anglo farm workers. This material illustrates that Mexican immigrants had long been anintegral part of agricultural production in the United States and werenot newcomers on the scene even in 1940. In fact, when the Dust Bowlfamilies arrived in California looking for work, the majority of migrantfarm laborers were either Latino or Asian, particularly of Mexican andFilipino descent. Voices from the Dust Bowl is particularly relevantfor us today since it demonstrates that living and working conditions ofagricultural migrant laborers have changed little in the interveninghalf century.  Children of Mexican migrant workers posing at entrance to El Rio FSA Camp, El Rio, California, 1941. Photo by Robert Hemmig.California was emphatically not the promised land of the migrants'dreams. Although the weather was comparatively balmy and farmers'fields were bountiful with produce, Californians also felt the effectsof the Depression. Local and state infrastructures were alreadyoverburdened, and the steady stream of newly arriving migrants was morethan the system could bear. After struggling to make it to California,many found themselves turned away at its borders. Those who did crossover into California found that the available labor pool was vastlydisproportionate to the number of job openings that could be filled. Migrants who found employment soon learned that this surfeit of workerscaused a significant reduction in the going wage rate. Even with anentire family working, migrants could not support themselves on theselow wages. Many set up camps along irrigation ditches in the farmers'fields. These "ditchbank" camps fostered poor sanitary conditions andcreated a public health problem. Arrival in California did not put an end to the migrants' travels. Their lives were characterized by transience. In an attempt to maintaina steady income, workers had to follow the harvest around the state. When potatoes were ready to be picked, the migrants needed to be wherethe potatoes were. The same principle applied to harvesting cotton,lemons, oranges, peas, and other crops. For this reason, migrantpopulations were most dense in agricultural centers. The territorycovered by Todd and Sonkin in this project ranged from as far south asEl Rio, just north of Oxnard, to as far north as Yuba City, north ofSacramento. Much of the documentation was concentrated in the SanJoaquin Valley. The Arvin Migratory Labor Camp was the first federally operated campopened by the FSA in 1937 and the starting point of the Todd/Sonkinexpedition. Thecamps were intended to resolve poor sanitation and public healthproblems, as well as to mitigate the burden placed on state and localinfrastructures. The FSA camps also furnished the migrants with a safespace in which to retire from the discrimination that plagued them andin which to practice their culture and rekindle a sense of community. Although each camp had a small staff of administrators, much of theresponsibility for daily operations and governance devolved to thecampers themselves. Civil activities were carried out through campcouncils and camp courts. Proceedings of council meetings and courtsessions can be found among the audio files in this onlinepresentation. Project fieldnotesprovide further information about the composition, operation, andcontext of these bodies as well as details about camp occupancy andorganization. When they were not working or looking for work, or tending to the civiland domestic operations of the camp, the migrants found time to engagein recreational activities. Singing and making music took place both inprivate living quarters and in public spaces. The music performed bythe migrants came from a number of different sources. The majority ofpieces belong to the Anglo-Celtic ballad tradition. Songs such as"Barbara Allen", "The Brown Girl","Nine Little Devils","Father Rumble","Lloyd Bateman ","Pretty Molly ",and " |
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