They say the damn Okies are filthy and stupid. They have no morals. They are sexual maniacs. They are thieves. They will steal anything. They don't understand the concept of possession.
--The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Remind you of anything? Does a word come to mind which might replace Okies in our present day conversation?
How about this:
They are killers and rapists. They are lunatics, released from jails and asylums, criminals, the the worst of the worst.
Bad hombres.
Most of all, they are not us.
Hungry, desperate, ragged, pitiful, and hopeful, they came in the early 1930s from the dust bowl, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi and elsewhere, out of financial ruin, looking for a better life, looking for honest work, dreaming modest dreams, only to be rejected by those who already possessed the dreams, for greed knows no greater foe then the want of others.
They came a thousand miles over their own trail of tears to find that the doors of bounty were locked against them and that the green paradise of California and all of its fruits were not to be had by the likes of them.
Killers, rapists, thieves, criminals.
Farmers, harvesters, mechanics, laborers.
Men, women, children, babies.
Suffering, hoping, dreaming, starving, dying.
Go back where you came from, they were told. Or by God we will send you back by force.
Because you are not us.
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