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Harvest Gypsies - Analysis Questions: 1) Close Reading: According to Steinbeck, why are migrants always hated?

Harvest Gypsies - Analysis Questions: 1) Close Reading: According to Steinbeck, why are migrants always hated?

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Thus, in California we find a curious attitude toward a group that makes our agriculture successful. The migrants are needed, and they are hated. Arriving in a district they find the dislike always meted out by the resident to the foreigner, the outlander. This hatred of the stranger occurs in the whole range of human history, from the most primitive village form to our own highly organized industrial farming. The migrants are hated for the following reasons, that they are ignorant and dirty people, that they are carriers of disease, that they increase the necessity for police and the tax bill for schooling in a community, and that if they are allowed to organize they can, simply by refusing to work, wipe out the season's crops. They are never received into a community nor into the life of a community. Wanderers in fact, they are never allowed to feel at home in the communities that demand their services. Let us see what kind of people they are, where they come from, and the routes of their wanderings. In the past they have been of several races, encouraged to come and often imported as cheap labor; Chinese in the early period, then Filipinos, Japanese and Mexicans. These were foreigners, and as such they were ostracized and segregated and herded about. If they attempted to organize they were deported or arrested, and having no advocates they were never able to get a hearing for their problems. But in recent years the foreign migrants have begun to organize, and at this danger signal they have been deported in great numbers, for there was a new reservoir from which a great quantity of cheap labor could be obtained. The drought in the middle west has driven the agricultural populations of Oklahoma, Nebraska and parts of Kansas and Texas westward. Their lands are destroyed and they can never go back to them. Thousands of them are crossing the borders in ancient rattling automobiles, destitute and hungry and homeless, ready to accept any pay so that they may eat and feed their children. And this is a new thing in migrant labor, for the foreign workers were usually imported without their children and everything that remains of their old life with them. The migrants arrive in California usually having used up every resource to get here, even to the selling of the poor blankets and utensils and tools on the way to buy gasoline. They arrive bewildered and beaten and usually in a state of semi-starvation, with only one necessity to face immediately, and that is to find work at any wage in order that the family may eat. And there is only one field in California that can receive them. Ineligible for relief, they must become migratory field workers. The earlier foreign migrants have invariably been drawn from a peon class. This is not the case with the new migrants. They are small farmers who have lost their farms, or farm hands who have lived with the family in the old American way. They are men who have worked hard on their own farms and have felt the pride of possessing and living in close touch with the land. They are resourceful and intelligent Americans who have gone through the hell of the drought, have seen their lands wither and die and the topsoil blow away; and this, man who has owned his land, is a curious and terrible pain. And there is another difference between their old life and the new. They have come from the little farm districts where democracy wa only possible but unavoidable, where popular government, whether practiced in the Grange, in church organization or in local gover was the responsibility of every man. And they have come into the country where, because of the movement necessary to make a livi they are not allowed any vote whatever, but are rather considered a properly unprivileged class. As one little boy in a squatters camp said, "When they need us they call us migrants, and when we've picked their crop, we're bums we got to get out." Vocabulary Agriculture - science and practice of farming Migrants - someone who moves from place to place doing seasonal work Meted - dispense or hand out justice or punishment "rimitive - not developed, simple stracized - exclude someone from a group, freeze out dvocates - someone who supports or recommends something Reservoir - supply Destitute - without basic necessities, poor, penniless Bewildered - cause someone to be confused or frightened Peon unskilled farm worker, lower class, day laborer Grange - farm or countryside, rural land Squatters - person who unlawfully occupies a land or building
Transcribed Image Text:Thus, in California we find a curious attitude toward a group that makes our agriculture successful. The migrants are needed, and they are hated. Arriving in a district they find the dislike always meted out by the resident to the foreigner, the outlander. This hatred of the stranger occurs in the whole range of human history, from the most primitive village form to our own highly organized industrial farming. The migrants are hated for the following reasons, that they are ignorant and dirty people, that they are carriers of disease, that they increase the necessity for police and the tax bill for schooling in a community, and that if they are allowed to organize they can, simply by refusing to work, wipe out the season's crops. They are never received into a community nor into the life of a community. Wanderers in fact, they are never allowed to feel at home in the communities that demand their services. Let us see what kind of people they are, where they come from, and the routes of their wanderings. In the past they have been of several races, encouraged to come and often imported as cheap labor; Chinese in the early period, then Filipinos, Japanese and Mexicans. These were foreigners, and as such they were ostracized and segregated and herded about. If they attempted to organize they were deported or arrested, and having no advocates they were never able to get a hearing for their problems. But in recent years the foreign migrants have begun to organize, and at this danger signal they have been deported in great numbers, for there was a new reservoir from which a great quantity of cheap labor could be obtained. The drought in the middle west has driven the agricultural populations of Oklahoma, Nebraska and parts of Kansas and Texas westward. Their lands are destroyed and they can never go back to them. Thousands of them are crossing the borders in ancient rattling automobiles, destitute and hungry and homeless, ready to accept any pay so that they may eat and feed their children. And this is a new thing in migrant labor, for the foreign workers were usually imported without their children and everything that remains of their old life with them. The migrants arrive in California usually having used up every resource to get here, even to the selling of the poor blankets and utensils and tools on the way to buy gasoline. They arrive bewildered and beaten and usually in a state of semi-starvation, with only one necessity to face immediately, and that is to find work at any wage in order that the family may eat. And there is only one field in California that can receive them. Ineligible for relief, they must become migratory field workers. The earlier foreign migrants have invariably been drawn from a peon class. This is not the case with the new migrants. They are small farmers who have lost their farms, or farm hands who have lived with the family in the old American way. They are men who have worked hard on their own farms and have felt the pride of possessing and living in close touch with the land. They are resourceful and intelligent Americans who have gone through the hell of the drought, have seen their lands wither and die and the topsoil blow away; and this, man who has owned his land, is a curious and terrible pain. And there is another difference between their old life and the new. They have come from the little farm districts where democracy wa only possible but unavoidable, where popular government, whether practiced in the Grange, in church organization or in local gover was the responsibility of every man. And they have come into the country where, because of the movement necessary to make a livi they are not allowed any vote whatever, but are rather considered a properly unprivileged class. As one little boy in a squatters camp said, "When they need us they call us migrants, and when we've picked their crop, we're bums we got to get out." Vocabulary Agriculture - science and practice of farming Migrants - someone who moves from place to place doing seasonal work Meted - dispense or hand out justice or punishment "rimitive - not developed, simple stracized - exclude someone from a group, freeze out dvocates - someone who supports or recommends something Reservoir - supply Destitute - without basic necessities, poor, penniless Bewildered - cause someone to be confused or frightened Peon unskilled farm worker, lower class, day laborer Grange - farm or countryside, rural land Squatters - person who unlawfully occupies a land or building
Harvest Gypsies - Analysis Questions: 1) Close Reading: According to Steinbeck, why are migrants always hated? 2) Close Reading: In the past, where did the migrants come from? How were they treated? 3) Analysis: How would you describe the new migrants (Dust Bowl migrants), based on your reading of this primary source? 4) Analysis: What does the little boy in the squatter's camp mean when he says: "When they need us they call us migrants, and when we've picked their crop, we're bums and we got to get out." What does that tell you about how the Dust Bowl migrants are viewed by others? 5) Analysis: Why do you think Steinbeck called this essay "Harvest Gypsies"?
Transcribed Image Text:Harvest Gypsies - Analysis Questions: 1) Close Reading: According to Steinbeck, why are migrants always hated? 2) Close Reading: In the past, where did the migrants come from? How were they treated? 3) Analysis: How would you describe the new migrants (Dust Bowl migrants), based on your reading of this primary source? 4) Analysis: What does the little boy in the squatter's camp mean when he says: "When they need us they call us migrants, and when we've picked their crop, we're bums and we got to get out." What does that tell you about how the Dust Bowl migrants are viewed by others? 5) Analysis: Why do you think Steinbeck called this essay "Harvest Gypsies"?
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