This particular photo by Dorothea Lange is called, "Toward Los Angeles". It was taken in March of the year 1937.
The men exhibited in the photo are only two of the millions of immigrants that moved from either across the border or from the American Midwest in order to find labor jobs in California. During the Great Depression was the highest peak of displaced farmers who sought work and moved out to the west coast. Wages were decreasing and the number of laid off farm workers was increasing; all in all, it was a bad time to be a farmer. The problem of the time when this picture was taken was the inequality and disparity that the farm laborers were forced to endure while on the job. The government was not doing anything effective to give aid to the farm workers, especially those who were Mexican or Mexican American; white government officials were even claiming that these specific immigrants made up half of the unemployed in California while white trade unions blamed them for the loss of available for white men.
A solution to this problem was the protest of this horrible mistreatment, which many groups did do. However, there were laws created (vagrancy laws) which gave officials the right to arrest and even give the workers to other farm owners to "pay off their debt"; eventually they were repealed in 1941 as they wee found unconstitutional. The creation of individual farm workers unions was the only solution to the problem until the convergence of two major unions which bore the United Farm Workers of America, most commonly associated with the great Cesar Chavez. Up to this day, the struggle to bring these workers all the rights they deserve is still being fought, although there have been successes.Dorothea
People think that America was going to provide them with a secure life that would obtain wealth yet when the Great Depression occurred it ended most immigrant work because there was hardly any jobs for the "non-aliens".
ReplyDeleteThese two men are likely to have been farmers from the Southern Great Plains, the region that became known as the Dust Bowl. The conditions were so poor that people were forced to leave everything behind.
ReplyDeleteThis one, like many other pictures show the men leaving. This suggests that mostly everywhere they went, jobs must of been scarce.
ReplyDeleteJohn Steinbeck wrote about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl and this particular image reminds me of his novel Of Mice and Men as farmers were in constant search for jobs.
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