Why did Californians hate Okies?

Because they arrived impoverished and because wages were low, many lived in filth and squalor in tents and shantytowns along the irrigation ditches. Consequently, they were despised as "Okies," a term of disdain, even hate, pinned on economically degraded farm laborers no matter their state of origin.

How did California react to the Okies?

Predominantly upland southerners, the half-million Okies met new hardships in California, where they were unwelcome aliens, forced to live in squatter camps and to compete for scarce jobs as agricultural migrant laborers.

How did Californians feel about Dust Bowl migrants?

And even though they were American-born, the Dust Bowl migrants still were viewed as intruders by many in California, who saw them as competing with longtime residents for work, which was hard to come by during the Great Depression. Others considered them parasites who would depend on government relief.

Why did Californians call these refugees Okies?

In California, the term came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma coming to look for employment. The Dust Bowl and the "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in over a million migrants, many headed to the farm labor jobs in the Central Valley.

Why Okies caught the sympathy of others across the country?

The plight of the Okies and other plains migrants caught the sympathy of people across the country. In part, this was because these migrants were white, in contrast to the Mexican and Filipino workers who supplied the "factory" farms with the seasonal labor needed before and after Okies arrived.

The Okies in California

How many Okies are their left?

An exact count does not exist, but one study estimates that as many as 3.75 million Californians, one-eighth of the state's 30 million population, claim Okie ancestry. Few of the children of that impoverished, homeless army attained the wealth of Scales, although a surprising number did.

Where did many Okies go when their farms failed?

Okie Migration

Many of them, poverty-stricken, traveled west looking for work. From 1935 to 1940, roughly 250,000 Oklahoma migrants moved to California. A third settled in the state's agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley.

What ethnicity were Okies?

"Okie" usually described "white" migratory agriculture workers; "Okie" was never, or at least rarely used, about African American migrants during the Great Depression. Most migrant agricultural workers, or "Okies," were white and traveled westward from the midwestern drought and cotton-growing states.

Is Okie derogatory?

Okies--They Sank Roots and Changed the Heart of California. Californians turned the term — long used as shorthand for an Oklahoma native — into an insult. My family members and other immigrants from south of the border had similar insults thrown at them, including “Mexican” and “paisa,” or hillbilly.

What do Californians call the Dust Bowl migrant workers?

Townspeople labeled Dust Bowl migrants as “Okies,” no matter where they were from. To them, Okies were ignorant, uneducated, dishonest, and strange. Some wanted to help the Okies by providing food and clothing. Others wanted them to leave California and go back home.

Why did so many people leaving the Dust Bowl head to California?

When the drought and dust storms showed no signs of letting up, many people abandoned their land. Others would have stayed but were forced out when they lost their land in bank foreclosures.

What did Californians primarily call the Dust Bowl migrant workers?

The migrant population exploded in California during the Great Depression, when thousands of people moved there to find work and a better life. Regardless of where they came from, their skills or education, they were called, "Okies."

What does Okie mean slang?

Okie. / (ˈəʊkɪ) / noun US slang, sometimes offensive. an inhabitant of Oklahoma. an impoverished migrant farm worker, esp one who left Oklahoma during the Depression of the 1930s to work elsewhere in the US.

What ended the Dust Bowl?

Although it seemed like the drought would never end to many, it finally did. In the fall of 1939, rain finally returned in significant amounts to many areas of the Great Plains, signaling the end of the Dust Bowl.

Is it rude to say Okie dokie?

Everyday use

Because OK and all its variants appear so often in so many forms of interaction and conversation, “okie-dokie” is widely applicable. You can use it as an affirmative answer to virtually any type of question — although this one, being on the casual side, is best used in informal contexts.

How were Okies treated during the Great Depression?

Because they arrived impoverished and because wages were low, many lived in filth and squalor in tents and shantytowns along the irrigation ditches. Consequently, they were despised as "Okies," a term of disdain, even hate, pinned on economically degraded farm laborers no matter their state of origin.

Who says Okie dokie?

By the 1930s, Americans, mostly white Americans, in need of a joking way to agree to something or affirm it, began using the term "okey-dokey." In that sense OK, O.K., okay and even okey-dokey are kind of relentlessly positive, too.

What did Okies eat?

It became official in 1988 when the Oklahoma state senate passed House Concurrent Resolution 1083 recognizing the state meal. And what a meal it is. Chicken-fried steak, barbecue pork, fried okra, squash, blackeyed peas, cornbread, biscuits, sausage gravy, grits, corn, strawberries and pecan pie.

Do migrant workers exist today?

There is an estimated 2.4 million hired farmworkers in the US, including migrant, seasonal, year-round, and guest program workers.

Where did the Dust Bowl hit the hardest?

The agricultural land that was worst affected by the Dust Bowl was 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares) of land by the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.

How did most of the teachers in Bakersfield treat the Okie kids?

They were constantly treated with disdain by students, parents and even teachers, who made them sit on the floor at the back of the classroom. Leo's plan was to have the Okie children build their own school in a field next to the farm labor camp.

Are Dust Bowls still occurring today?

But in some places in the world there are huge new dust bowls forming now that dwarf the U.S. Dust Bowl of the 1930s. One is in Africa, south of the Sahara. There is a strip of land going across Africa with relatively low rainfall and a lot of cattle and goats.

Why did so many farmers leave Oklahoma in the 1930s?

By the end of the 1930s, especially in agriculture, the state was still beaten down by the economy and the weather, and Oklahoma's image had been cast for decades by those who chose to leave for better opportunities.

What industry did not suffer during the Great Depression?

Despite the widespread impact of the Great Depression in America, two industries did not suffer. These industries included entertainment and alcohol.

What was the largest mass exodus history?

UNHCR estimates 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were displaced during the partition of India, the largest mass migration in human history. The largest documented voluntary emigration in history was the Italian diaspora, which migrated from Italy between 1880 and 1915, with 13 million people leaving the country.