Harvest Gypsies Analysis

History is an essential factor within time, present and future, even today several have learned from events or works written in the past due to their constant lessons and messages being expressed. Within the United States specifically 1929-1941, one event that several learned from is the impact of the Great depression. Throughout the Great depression, as stock markets crashed it soon resulted in banks entering bankruptcy reluctantly closing down. ” Millions of families lost their savings as numerous banks collapsed in the early 1930’s unable to make mortgage or rent payments, many were deprived of their homes or were evicted from their apartments” [...] “In 1933, the average family income had dropped to 1,500, 40 percent less than the 1929 average family income of 2,300” (Bryson 1).

Dr. Seth Holmes, who is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, was witness to the lives of a group of indigenous migrant farmworkers from the Triqui village of San Miguel in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. Through participant observation as well as interviews with clinic staff, public health officials, farm employees, U.S. border agents, and residents of the farming areas, he paints a detailed picture of the true cost of fresh fruits and vegetables in this country. In Holmes’ account, by using the stories of real people, we learn that Triqui farmworkers deal with backbreaking work, racism, language barriers (most Triqui farmworkers understand little English or Spanish), and

Through Steinbeck's novel he brings to attention the social injustice occurring against the working class. Inequality is recognized in many forms: from unequal land distribution, to allowing migrants to starve and contract diseases. One individual in the novel, with a newspaper company, is rumored to possess over a million acres, while the working class, many of whom are former farmers, are only allowed to view or work such land (Steinbeck 201). Working the land also poses labor injustice as pay is reported at a meager “twenty cents an hour,” which is incapable of supporting a family (Steinbeck 338). Without access to resources of the land and insufficient funds to support a family, migrant workers are positioned at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

The theme of American Democracy and Its Discontents 1919-present represents within it many defining moments and events that changed or supported the change of The United States of America. Through my studies of this time period I found many events that I believe specifically changed how we live our lives to this day. In reviewing these events, the four events that stood out to me as the most significant were the Stock Market Crash which led to the Great Depression, the Equal Rights Amendment, World War II, specifically the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the U.S. dropping of an atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan, and Rowe vs. Wade, the legalization of abortion. One of the most critical lows in Post World War I America was when

The history of migrant farm workers in California has changed extensively over time, especially under the influence of outside factors such as war and the desire to emigrate. Migrant workers, not just farm workers, have been involved in various occupations, from fishing to forestry, yet the agricultural field remains the most common (“Migrant Farm Labor”). Agricultural activities were once performed by Native Americans before Europeans established a colonial presence. During the existence of slavery in the U.S., it is believed by environmental historians that slaves applied their techniques in agriculture to those of American techniques, allowing them to rise against their owners with a better understanding of the landscape of the plantations

Only a third of the one million migrants to California during the Great Depression fled the dust storms in the Midwest, and only half of those were farmers; yet the popular myth of the hungry, poor and dispossessed farmer who only wanted a piece of land to call his own continues to dominate. In this cultural history, Shindo, who teaches history at Louisiana State University, examines the impact of the myth and the reality of Dust Bowl migrants. The four major artists treated here are Dorothea Lange, whose photographs collected in Migrant Mother (1936) symbolized all Depression hopelessness; Woody Guthrie, whose Dust Bowl ballads were informed by his own experiences as an Okie migrant; John Steinbeck, whose novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) generalized human suffering; and John Ford, who adapted that novel to film the next year.

Only 18 years apart, two men spoke about the concepts of liberty. These men, John F. Kennedy and Learned Hand, spoke to civilians in wartime America. Hand gave his speech at the height of WWII. Kennedy gave his shortly after, during the cold war. Both Hand and Kennedy agreed on the same basic principles of liberty: it is directly related to freedom, it must be fought for, Hand, the federal judge who studied philosophy at Harvard, gave his speech "The Spirit of Liberty" to over 1.5 million people in 1944.

John Steinbeck has been a pillar of American literature for decades. His work, especially Grapes of Wrath and The Harvest Gypsies, helped to shed light on some of the issues that plagued California, and the rest of the United States during the Great Depression. His works accentuate the theme of the importance of community, especially when those with the power to help don 't. These novels take place during the Great Depression, a time when there were very few jobs, little stability, widespread poverty, and diminished hopes for the future. This era sets the stage on which these stories take place. During these harsh times, many people turned to the government or banks for help, but they were turned down by the banks because they wanted a profit, or they bankrupted, and the government 's resources were stretched so low they could only help few people.

In his speech, Franklin Roosevelt determined the directions of the new politics and the aspects of the state authorities that needed to be changed. He referred to freedom of an individual as the main value of the country and pointed out a new understanding of liberty. Speaking of the state of affairs, he claimed that "Necessitous men are not free men" (Roosevelt, Acceptance Speech). In doing so, he claimed that a person who does not have all the necessary means for life cannot be free as far as the necessity is a kind of restriction, and freedom does not involve restraining.

The American political culture includes diverse themes that bond the citizens of the United States. However, the themes of the American government can simultaneously contrast one another. For instance, the ideas of liberty and populism can function in harmony under certain circumstances, yet the two ideas can conflict with one another in further situations. Liberty, the state of being free, is often associated with independence; this important concept is also associated with the first amendment and freedom that the country honors tremendously, and countless foreigners strive to achieve it. On the other hand, populism, the belief that the majority of the people should control the government rather than a small group, can be associated with the mob rule, yet populism is meant for the people having the freedom of participating and influencing the government.