What did Californians owe climate refugees arriving at their border?

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The Arrival of the “Okies”

Between 1935 and 1940, more than 250,000 Americans fled the Dust Bowl states—Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Arkansas—for California. Following U.S. Route 66, they drove west hoping to escape an economic disaster caused by environmental catastrophe.

Labelled “Okies,” these Dust Bowl refugees were not welcome in California, despite being predominantly white, native-born American citizens. The state passed a string of laws designed to deter Okies from making California their new home.

Border Barricade

Faced with the arrival of tens of thousands of itinerant migrants, the Los Angeles Police Department took a hard line, and decided to try and block migrants arriving at the border. Los Angeles Police Chief James “Two-Gun” Davis deployed officers to California's borders as part of a “bum barricade.” Police stopped cars, trains, and buses along a 700-mile frontier, demanding migrants show "visible means of support" or face deportation. Between February and April 1936, LAPD turned back 11,000 American migrants.

We are protecting our citizens against enemies of society who roam about the country seeking green pastures in which to forage and who are not looking for gainful employment.
-Chief Davis, reported in the LA Times 10 February 1936.

Citizens’ Rights

In 1939, Fred Edwards, a California resident, drove to Texas to pick up his unemployed brother-in-law Frank Duncan. Stopped at a police checkpoint, Edwards was arrested under California’s “anti-Okie” law, and faced 6 months in jail for transporting Duncan across the California border.

Could California refuse entry to American citizens? The Supreme Court was asked to decide and in 1941 they reached a unanimous decision. Their judgement in Edwards v. California confirmed American citizens had a constitutional right to travel to any part of the U.S. California could not stop the Okie migration.

Surviving California

Many of the Okies who arrived in California settled in the Central Valley, working as farm laborers. Thousands were housed in both formal government-run camps and informal refugee settlements, often without plumbing or electricity. They were subject to widespread discrimination, shamed as dirty and poor. This image of the hopeless “Okie” was perpetuated in works like John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother.

However, many Okies themselves challenged these stereotypes. They felt their culture was better reflected in the sub-genre of country music known as Bakersfield Sound, developed in the 1950s and ‘60s and made popular by artists like Merle Haggard.

And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
-Merle Haggard Okie From Muskogee, 1969

Left: First-edition dust jacket cover of The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck