Rural flight is the migratory pattern of people from rural areas into urban areas. It is urbanization seen from the rural perspective.
The Dust Bowl was the result of a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of natural factors and human-made factors: a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion, most notably the destruction of the natural topsoil by settlers in the region. The drought came in three waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as long as eight years.
Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. Forced displacement or forced migration of an individual or a group may be caused by deportation, for example ethnic cleansing, and other reasons. A person who has been deported or is under sentence of deportation is called a deportee.
An Okie is a person identified with the state of Oklahoma, or their descendants. This connection may be residential, historical or cultural. For most Okies, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Oklahoman. While not an official demographic used or recognized by the United States Census Bureau, Okies, due to various factors, have developed their own distinct culture within larger social groupings both akin to and separate from Midwestern and Southern influences. Included are their own dialect, music, and Indigenous-derived folklore.
Florence Owens Thompson was an American woman who was the subject of Dorothea Lange's photograph Migrant Mother (1936), considered an iconic image of the Great Depression. The Library of Congress titled the image: "Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California."
Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century and some who were naturalized citizens who were once native, Operation Wetback was designed to send them to Mexico.
The Bracero Program was a U.S. Government-sponsored program that imported Mexican farm and railroad workers into the United States between the years 1942 and 1964.
The Mexican Repatriation is the common name given to the repatriation, deportation, and expulsion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans from the United States during the Great Depression between 1929 and 1939. Estimates of how many were repatriated, deported, or expelled range from 300,000 to 2 million.
Esperanza Rising is a young adult historical fiction novel written by Mexican-American author Pam Muñoz Ryan and released by Scholastic Press on 27 March 2000. The novel focuses on Esperanza, the only daughter of wealthy Mexican parents, and follows the events that occur after her father's murder. Esperanza, her mother, and their former household servants flee to California with no money during the Great Depression, where they find agricultural work that pays very little. The book received multiple positive reviews from critics, who praised Muñoz Ryan's writing and excitedly concluded that it was welcome for classroom discussion.
Dust Bowl Ballads is an album by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. It was released by Victor Records, in 1940. All the songs on the album deal with the Dust Bowl and its effects on the country and its people. It is considered to be one of the first concept albums. It was Guthrie's first commercial recording and the most successful album of his career.
In the context of the 20th-century history of the United States, the Second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million African Americans from the South to the Northeast, Midwest and West. It began in 1940, through World War II, and lasted until 1970. It was much larger and of a different character than the first Great Migration (1916–1940), where the migrants were mainly rural farmers from the South and only came to the Northeast and Midwest.
Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935 as part of the Dust Bowl in the United States. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated to have displaced 300 thousand tons of topsoil from the prairie area.
Arvin Federal Government Camp, also known as the Weedpatch Camp or Sunset Labor Camp, was built by the Farm Security Administration south of Bakersfield, California, in 1936 to house migrant workers during the Great Depression. The National Register of Historic Places placed several of its historic buildings on the registry on January 22, 1996.
Emigration from Mexico is the movement of people from Mexico to other countries. The top destination by far is the United States, by a factor of over 150 to 1 compared to the second most popular destination, Canada.
The California agricultural strikes of 1933 were a series of strikes by mostly Mexican and Filipino agricultural workers throughout the San Joaquin Valley. More than 47,500 workers were involved in the wave of approximately 30 strikes from 1931 to 1941. Twenty-four of the strikes, involving 37,500 union members, were led by the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union (CAWIU). The strikes are grouped together because most of them were organized by the CAWIU. Strike actions began in August among cherry, grape, peach, pear, sugar beet, and tomato workers, and culminated in a number of strikes against cotton growers in the San Joaquin Valley in October. The cotton strikes involved the largest number of workers. Sources vary as to numbers involved in the cotton strikes, with some sources claiming 18,000 workers and others just 12,000 workers, 80% of whom were Mexican.
The Cantaloupe strike of 1928 was labor movement of cantaloupe pickers in Imperial Valley, California. On May 7, 1928 cantaloupe pickers walked off of the job and the strike lasted to May 10 of the same year. The strikers had hardly any outside support and many were effectively imprisoned by local police for gathering together in any public space during the strike. The strikers were mostly Mexican immigrants or of Mexican descent because they comprised the vast majority of produce laborers in California, about 3,500 to 4,000 Mexicans worked as cantaloupe pickers. While the strike was short-lived and seemingly unorganized, it stands as a victory for the workers.
The Santa Clara cannery strike occurred during the summer of 1931. Workers spontaneously walked out of canneries in order to protest a 20% cut in wages. These workers were met with violence from local authorities, and strikebreakers were brought in to replace the workers. While this strike was unsuccessful, it marked the beginning of organizing cannery workers.
Deportation and removal from the United States occurs when the U.S. government orders a person to leave the country. In fiscal year 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted 315,943 removals. Criteria for deportations are set out in 8 U.S.C. § 1227.
The Harvest Gypsies, by John Steinbeck, is a series of feature-story articles written on commission for The San Francisco News about the lives and times of migrant workers in California's Central Valley. Published daily from October 5 to 12, 1936, Steinbeck explores and explains the hardships and triumphs of American migrant workers during the Great Depression, tracing their paths and the stories of their lives and travels from one crop harvest to the next crop harvest as they eked out a stark existence as temporary farmhands.
Whose Names Are Unknown is an American novel by Sanora Babb, written in the 1930s but not published until 2004. It centers on members of a High Plains farm family during the Great Depression as they endure the poverty inflicted by drought and the Dust Bowl; they ultimately flee to California in hopes of building a better life but encounter a new set of hardships.
