In the 1930s, a series of dust storms and severe droughts hit parts of the Midwest and the Great Plains in the United States. Crops withered and died, the ground cracked and split, leaving farmers without income or food—the area became known as the Dust Bowl.

The collapse in commodity prices, together with the Great Depression, left many farmers in irreparable financial ruin. More than 2.5 million people participated in the mass exodus from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and other affected states.

Of these, 200,000 moved west towards California, travelling along Route 66, the “path of people in flight” as described by John Steinbeck. Already a successful writer, now working as a journalist on commission from the San Francisco News, Steinbeck watched the crisis unfold.

Steinbeck immersed himself in the lives of domestic migrant workers and stared unflinchingly at the social and economic abyss of the time. His reporting was published as The Harvest Gypsies series of features in the News in 1936.

When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you; deep in the crevices of Steinbeck’s mind, a novel, an epic, a masterpiece coalesced. The Grapes of Wrath—“part labour testament, part family chronicle… part transcendental gospel”—was born. In a frenzy, Steinbeck took a mere five months to capture the journey, both physical and spiritual, of tenant farmer Tom Joad and his family.

Steinbeck’s novel, published in 1939 and an instant success, has persisted throughout the years with continued cultural relevance. The Joads’ journey is almost biblical, in both subject and scale. To shadow them would be a similarly hallowed endeavour.

Back in June, fascinated by the sensory richness and moving power of Steinbeck’s writing, and finding parallels between the socioeconomic and climate-related conditions of immigrants today and the migrants of the 1930s, I embarked on my own quest across the “Mother Road” of Route 66.

I journeyed from Austin, Texas through Sallisaw and Clinton in Oklahoma, across the panhandle of Texas into the New Mexico mountains to Santa Fe. From there to Flagstaff in Arizona and down to the broken, sun-rotted canyons; then climbing, climbing through the lushness of Yosemite to reach the neat row of Californian pastures that stretch to the horizon.

Channelling Steinbeck’s journalistic instincts, here are some observations from my journey.

Sallisaw and Clinton, Oklahoma

Sallisaw in Oklahoma is the starting point for The Grapes of Wrath, but in actuality the Dust Bowl hit much further west.

“Steinbeck just needed some place to start,” said Jeff Mayo, news editor of the Sequoyah County Times, the city’s newspaper.

The two Oklahoma cities that Steinbeck writes about, Sallisaw and Clinton, share many traits. These working-class backwaters are nestled in the heart of Oklahoma’s greenery, hunkered quaintly down, weathering the stream of time.

Smith’s claims are backed by significant evidence. In 2022, 100,000 Californians moved to Texas and 15,000 to Oklahoma—for a range of reasons that include a lower cost of living, affordable housing, lower taxes, increased job opportunities and fewer wildfires.

“It’s making it difficult for people that have lived here all their lives to purchase a home,” Smith explains. “Because they cannot afford one, because the markets went up so much because of the people coming in from California.”

Steinbeck’s home in California

Steinbeck’s boyhood home in Salinas, California, has been converted into a quaint restaurant and house museum. Opened in 1974, the Steinbeck House Restaurant celebrates his significant contributions to the local community and the world.

Hannah James, a 19 year-old volunteer at the restaurant, discusses a feeling of living in history: “I just got this kind of feeling like ‘wow,’ just amazement and I’m honoured to be a part of local history.”

The Grapes of Wrath, which won Steinbeck the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, was praised by the left as a triumph of proletarian writing and acclaimed by reviewers as ‘The Great American Novel’. Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the novel’s most famous advocates, but not everyone was happy.

Immigration and today’s migrant farmers

It’s hard to know what Steinbeck would have thought about the fact that immigrants make up the majority of farmworkers in the US today: 68% are foreign-born workers, and 36% are US citizens. Also, it is estimated that up to a third of farmworkers live and work in California.

Not far from Steinbeck’s former home in Salinas lies a migrant housing area, with “apartments for young men who come from Mexico every summer,” said Kathy Kulper. She added: “This community really relies on migrant workers because there’s nobody else that’s going to do that work. They’re very hardworking people and they try to provide for their families as best they can. It’s hard when they get deported.”

Sequoyah County Times news editor Jeff Mayo recalled a recent weather event in Sallisaw: “We had a hailstorm go through a few months ago, lots of new roofs around town. I guarantee most of those were put on by someone who does not speak English as a first language.”

Immigration is a key issue among US voters this presidential election season. It’s an exceptionally tense subject in the South where politicians and media pundits argue about “sending the bad ones over” and how taxes and housing costs will rise if asylum seekers are allowed in.

Illegal crossings at the US southern border reached their lowest level in President Biden’s administration in September. US Border Patrol agents recorded 1.5 million migrant apprehensions for the fiscal year 2024, compared to a record high of 2.2 million in 2022.

Continuing on the Grapes of Wrath route near the US–Mexico border, I travelled to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona—all red (Republican-voting) states with the exception of the swing state of New Mexico where Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to win this November.

In Austin, Texas, the liberal university state capital dubbed as a “sea of blue in a state of red,” the air is thick with the scent of barbecue. One culprit is Franklin Barbecue, where the long line for lunch snakes through the restaurant, outside and then coils in on itself. Kitchen manager and “pitmaster” Matthew van Orden, of towering stature and quiet confidence, showed off the 600 briskets being smoked at one time.

When asked about immigration, he spoke expansively: “Nobody should be illegal, we’re all human beings, we’re all on the same planet, we’re all breathing the same air.” Most of the delivery people at his establishment spoke exclusively in Spanish.

After the flat jumble of concrete and steel of Texas and the foliage of Oklahoma comes creative Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. Winding streets and adobe buildings seemed to breathe an earthy smell of art. The streets were louder than Sallisaw and Clinton, filled with the birdsong of Spanish.

A few hours’ drive from Santa Fe, in the mountains of northern Arizona, lies Flagstaff, offering a brief respite from the staggering 40ºC heat. The air was cold and snappy after rain, like ossified taffy. A calmness filled the streets, each dwelling almost detached and isolated from its neighbours.

Alex Holder was exuberant and chirpy behind the barista counter at Val’s Workshop in downtown Flagstaff. Her smile was pixie-like, bright and full, but as a first-time voter she was hesitant when expressing her opinion on politics.

“I think anyone should be allowed anywhere you want, right?” she said. “I don’t mind immigrants at all. At all.” However, she admitted that she rarely discussed such things and was, for the most part, unaware of the goings-ons of the migratory world.