We Are All Okies

The title of this post comes from the late Jack Taylor, who was my minister during graduate school. Jack grew up in Oklahoma during the 1930’s. His bedroom window overlooked Route 66, the “Mother Road” from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath that folks traveled from the Dust Bowl-ravaged Midwest to California during the Great Depression. The migrants were often termed by longer-term California residents as Okies, usually accompanied with an expletive. “We are all Okies” has resonated with me for 30 years.

The experience of the Okies mirrors that of other migrants throughout history. They moved to make a better life for themselves and their children. Often upon their arrival, they were treated with hostility. The current political climate is just history repeating itself. The “Know Nothing Party” of the mid-19th century railed against immigrants from Ireland. In the early 20th century the animus was against southern Europeans and Asians. Now the anger is directed against Mexican and Middle Eastern (particularly Muslim) immigrants. Even migrants from within the United States can be subjected to disdain. Washingtonians decry the Californians who’ve moved north. Texans and Georgians berate the Yankees who’ve moved south. The faces may change, but the attitude is the same.

Immigrant labor has always powered large sectors of our economy. Restaurants, hotels, hospitals, nursing homes, food processors, and farms today could not survive without immigrants starting out as dishwashers, custodians, nurses’ aides, assembly line workers, and pickers. The children of these immigrants often go higher on the economic ladder thanks to their parents’ labor. For example, the child of a nurse’s aide may go to medical school. Again, this is a familiar pattern. Witness the descendants of Irish and Jewish immigrants who’ve achieved success.

It’s a rare American who has not descended from immigrants. It’s just a matter of when their families migrated. Even Native Americans and Alaskans migrated from Asia during the Ice Age. It is incumbent upon us to remember that our ancestors were once strangers here, and not to denigrate the newcomers. We all have some Okie in us.