The Pacific. Spannin’ the bustling cityscapes of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, with thousands of migrants, people from Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma all a-comin’ from their respective states in order to work for their sizeable families. Parents have children young–an’ work them young–families of nine having their nine year olds work for a wage. Every person this side of the Rocky Mountains has a mouth to feed, yet there are not enough jobs for every man, woman, and child, which ain’t helped by our ravenous banks and landowners established here in California. However, I am still thankful for these corporate giants as they thin the herd of the filthy immigrants who try to take jobs away from us locals. 

Every day, each time the high tide comes about, hundreds more migrants stroll into California proudly riding their dilapidated jalopies–bought from whatever dealership they git scammed at–underestimating the Depression’s effects on even the awmighty West. They come from their drought-stricken land of Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma, often expecting a better life than the dreadful one they recently left behind in the godforsaken dust. Gross, grimy people hailing from the Great Plains, proud of heritage–but so easily leaving what that heritage had built from the bottom up. Truly, these Okies are nothin’ but squat, a now habitual thought among my grandparents and I when we saw a fresh band of vagrants skidding off of Route 66, they ‘oughta make tracks back to where they came from. This is the collective vision taught by grandfathers, to their son, and down to his son. In the morn, another hundred migrants advance throughout Route 66, despite my ancestors’ disgust. They are begrudgingly welcomed by the scrutiny of greed and the deep blue Pacific tides which usher them through to their idear of salvation in hordes. 

The ocean calls to them, promising wealth, barely delivering to even the most hardworking, supremely diligent of the dirty migrants. A golden bell, ringing, tolling, yet, it is one the poor bastards will never reach. It feels so close–that they could reach out an’ grab et– but this success wouldn’t be earned by any of the Texans, Kansans, and Okies, due to the fact that they are Texans, Kansans, and Okies. A predestined label forced on at birth that not even divine intervention can remove. The migrants fortunate enough to secure a job would have their wage hacked down again and again, completely out of the control of those same migrants. A tsunami-like force from the gods of the Pacific tearin’ down all their sloppy work. Controlled like a marionette by a ventriloquist, in this case, the greed a-growin’ within our wealthiest Californians. They’ll continue down an inglorious path blind to the maw of avarice they have entered. Us humble natives see these drifters as lowly parasites, like lice. I say, good. 

They live on with nothin’ much but our gracious pity, mainly because they certainly don’t leave when we scratch at ‘em. And, by god, if we do git rid of them, they go and die without our help. The beggars feed on our superior blood after retiring from their own. This is a cycle that will forever repeat, which is the same as the tide rising and lowering. The tide will rise, and eventually lower, which brings in more migrants to the fertile land of California, brewing the anger of us locals for years and years to come as the Depression and drought continue. But, like the harsh waves of the Pacific crashing down onto the beaten shore, the discourse between both parties wouldn’t and couldn’t cease, and one thing always remained: the grains of sand being beaten by the waves. These migrants, like the grains of sand, were resilient in the face of hardship an’ could survive these poundins just as they’ve for years. The tragedies they had faced only made these people, banded together like pirates of a motley crew, stronger, which I always thought was strange. Those forced to live in Hoovervilles were immediately inclined to help one another; which is the prime difference between the migrants and us Herculean denizens. Those who grew up learnin’ about the adversities of life could adapt, and join with others who have shared the same pain. They form connections, and become allies wit’ one goal at a time. During the height of the Depression, it was merely to survive, to eat, and to feed those of your own kin– anguish and grief being two, unavoidable factors of life for the damned Texans, Kansans, and Okies. Yet, through the disaster, they were resilient, like the beaten sand, for they would not succumb to a meager wave, or even a tsunami. Time and time again, the morals of our local landowners would be questioned, but all that mattered to a businessman was his business. At the same time, we, both factions, became monstrous, yet more humane; another infinitely recurring cycle that can never cease.