Published, April, 1938 by the SIMON J. LUBIN SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA, INC. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PREFACE THEIR BLOOD IS STRONG CHAPTER I The People, Who They Are Needed and Hated Just Who Are They? Beaten, Bewildered Their Blood Is Strong Good Old Names Where The Fruit —, Trailed By Starvation CHAPTER II Squatters’ Camps Then Come The Rains Starvation Terror Filth, Flies, Flu A Little Child —-! No Will, No Strength CHAPTER III Corporation Farming Sides With Labor Large Farms Organized Power Is Widespread Only One Room Pushed To Limit Fear Quells Workers Courts Controlled CHAPTER IV Government Housing Excellent Results Causes Of Revolt The Good Neighbors None On Relief Help For All Schooling Provided Arguments Against Charge Of Radicalism CHAPTER V Relief, Medicine, Income, Diet One Family’s Case Can’t Get Relief Many Like This $400 Is Maximum Income Typical Diets Childbirth Problem One Mother’s Story CHAPTER VI The Foreign Migrant “Yellow Peril” Grows Quota Is Favored The Trouble Lies —- Mexicans Right-less Filipino Problem Good Workers Peon Labor Goes CHAPTER VII The Future? Migratory Labor Board Punishment of Terrorism Fascism In California EPILOGUE Spring, 1938 SIMON J. LUBIN SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA, INC. SIMON J. LUBIN SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA
Author
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (1902-1968) was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, and the novella, Of Mice and Men, published in 1937. In all, he wrote twenty-five books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and several collections of short stories. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley region of California, a culturally diverse place of rich migratory and immigrant history. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place. Steinbeck moved briefly to New York City, but soon returned home to California to begin his career as a writer. Most of his earlier work dealt with subjects familiar to him from his formative years. An exception was his first novel Cup of Gold which concerns the pirate Henry Morgan, whose adventures had captured Steinbeck's imagination as a child. In his subsequent novels, Steinbeck found a more authentic voice by drawing upon direct memories of his life in California. Later, he used real historical conditions and events in the first half of 20th century America, which he had experienced first-hand as a reporter. Steinbeck often populated his stories with struggling characters; his works examined the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. His later body of work reflected his wide range of interests, including marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. One of his last published works was Travels with Charley, a travelogue of a road trip he took in 1960 to rediscover America. He died in 1968 in New York of a heart attack, and his ashes are interred in Salinas. Seventeen of his works, including The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Cannery Row (1945), The Pearl (1947), and East of Eden (1952), went on to become Hollywood films, and Steinbeck also achieved success as a Hollywood writer, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Story in 1944 for Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat.
