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The Perception Of Home For Migrant Workers In Grapes Of Wrath

813 Words4 Pages

Aidan Kwok
Mrs. Battey
English 11: Period 3
27 March 2023

The concept of home is most eloquently depicted by John O’ Callaghan, “Home isn’t really a place. It’s the people who make it what it is.” That couldn’t be more true as the idea of home as a place was shattered after the Great Depression. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were forced out of their homes by banks. The home had always been where families held their farms, and the prospect of that being taken away from them really led to many Americans reevaluating their idea of home. The film “Grapes of Wrath'', Dorthea Lange’s photographs, GOW Interchapters, and “Dust Bowl Dance'' by Mumford and Sons, reveal how the Great Depression changed the perception of home for migrant workers …show more content…

Many landowners in California took advantage of this massive influx of migrant workers. The flood of new workers allows landowners to drive wages down. Tom and the Joad family moved to California for work after the bank foreclosed their family farm. When they arrived, they met a man who exposed the secrets of the business and how the landowners lied about wages. The police then attempted to silence the man by leveling unfounded accusations and charges against the man. The constant under-delivery of wages makes finding a real home almost impossible. Many families settled and lived out of tents or camps that were in terrible conditions. The wages made it impossible to settle down and own land. Not only could migrant workers not find a workable wage but they struggled to find food. In the GOW Interchapters, Steinbeck details how the landowners had a policy where “the food must rot, must be forced to rot”(8) so that the profit margins would stay high due to the continued unsatisfied demand for food. The lack of food provided no security to the kids and mothers who tried to maintain a functioning household. The continued terrible treatment in their new home quickly soured the previously positive connotation of home. Driving wages down and unethical business practices lead to the negative connotations of home during the Great

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