Research
Summary: To prepare for my family discussion, I read an article that was discussing the "forced migration" of farmers from areas such as Texas and Oklahoma to California, during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. The article discussed how push factors (such as failing prices of livestock and crops) and pull factors (such as handbills advertising work in California) led to this mass migration. It also discussed the disappointment upon arrival due to high work wages and competition for limited jobs.
Evaluation: This text relates to the story because the Joad family is undergoing this migration during these chapters. This text gave me a deeper insight into the reasons behind their migration and what they experienced upon arrival. It allowed me to further analyze the Joads' experiences in the story.
MLA Citation: "Desperation Road: Great Depression Migration." Red River Historian. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013. <http://www.redriverhistorian.com/desperation.html>.
Philosophical Questioning
As I was reading these chapters, I thought of some deeper level questions to use in my family discussion. They were as follows:
1) What is the importance of land/home to a person's life? What effect could losing this land have on a person?
2) How have acts of selfishness and greed, within small businesses, affected the lives of humans from the time of the Great Depression/Dust Bowl until today?
3) What are the positive and negative aspects of migration on a state? How do most people view migration and why? What influences their views on migrants?
Reflection
The most memorable moment in my family discussion was when my father was speaking about views on migration and he said, "Most people acknowledge that migration is good for the state, yet they look upon migrants unfavorably." America is a country built upon migration and the hardworking nature of these migrants, yet jealousy of the jobs that the migrants assume leads to people resenting them and treating them as inferiors. This comment made me take a step back and realize all of the flaws in the way that we treat migrants and analyze the reasons behind this mistreatment.
In this discussion, I was surprised by how prevalent some of the issues of the great depression still are today. For instance, my father explained to me that there are still many small companies that work with the government to take away homes from poor people by unethical ways that are unfortunately legal. Just like the car salesmen took advantage of the farmers desperate to get to California by cheating them with bad deals when they didn't know any better, businessmen today use people's ignorance to trick them and use them as pawns in their cons. Due to all the corruption today, people are much less likely to trust and be confident in one another, which has led to a much more disconnected and disheartening world.
For the next family discussion, I think that I will attempt to connect my questions to each other more. All of my questions sparked interesting discussions, however they seemed to be separate disjointed discussions, rather than flowing together like the last family discussion did. The topics were not integrated to an overall theme, which I will attempt to achieve next time.
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