Discrimination                              Against the "Okies"

Shelter In California

Residents of Oklahoma came to California looking for a living and as soon as they got there, there was a overload of workers. Due to the limited living space, the migrants of Oklahoma were forced to live in ditches that were unsanitary, and almost filled with mud and water. Many of the migrant workers who lived in the ditches either died or developed asthma, pellagra, or other lung diseases. As time passed, better shelters were built but only by a little.


Living As A Labor Worker In California

California was used to using many different ethnic groups for labor at the time including Chinese, Japanese and many Mexican minorities. These main three ethnic groups were thought to be the best for "stoop-labor" which means working with the waist bent down from dusk until dawn. White people were thought to be not as good at that kind of task so instead they were given fruit picking jobs which had lower pay. The only stoop-labor the white migrants were allowed to was cotton, potato, and pea picking. Field jobs, besides picking cotton, potatoes and peas, were given to non-whites only and was the higher paying job from ladder labor. Some migrants were given both types of labor while others were hopeless and left with no job. Even if the migrants had both jobs, the pay was less than 50 cents.

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