I’m in Houston too, and I’d have to say my fellow Houstonians are correct in their assessments.
There was a series of articles in last week’s NY Times that contrasted the experiences of the Katrina Diaspora in Houston and Atlanta, the two cities (or metro areas) that saw the most displaced people come in. There was a very marked difference, basically those that went to Atlanta were those who left ahead of the storm, having resources such as cars and relatives in the area (a support network), while those who ended up in Houston were those who were forced there by circumstance.
OK, maybe it was only the one article, but it was a pretty good one… this one (you can always use BugMeNot to read the article if it forces you to register).
Her name wouldn’t happen to be Sage by any chance, would it?
Actually, The Grapes of Wrath was almost entirely fiction. The “Okies” had few problems integrating in California. See this article for more details.
My paternal grandmother’s family migrated from Oklahoma in the mid 20s, before “The Grapes of Wrath” was set. They spread out in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. They ended up along the way from barely inside Texas to Salinas, CA and several places in between.
I never heard any stories of discrimination from them, they all shared a common hatred of Oklahoma. I figured they just “beat the rush”, so to speak, but if Steinbeck’s portrayal is false, that would account for the lack of animosity towards them.
That’s very true. Most of the folks who ended up in Houston were part of the massive busing effort that happened about a week after Katrina hit. All those folks who were camped out at the convention center and the Superdome were brought to Houston and the surrounding areas.
Afraid not. Did you have a friend displaced by the hurricane?
Has Houston done a study that demonstrates a spike in crime, directly attributable to Katrina evacuees? Or is this all an anecdotal, everybody-knows thing?
Just curious.
Well, there’s been a well-documented spike in crime. Whether it’s directly attributable to Katrina evacuees is debatable, I suppose, but there certainly seem to be a lot of them involved in it. One example is that several high schools have had clashes between local gangs and gangs of NO transplants, some ending in shootings. Now you could argue that the Houston gangsters would probably be causing trouble just fine without the added Katrina kids, but it’s hard to argue that the evacuees haven’t made the situation worse.
That article seems an awful lot like a right-wing hatchet job. The nitpicking does nothing to undermine Steinbeck’s credibility (Only 34% of Okie migrants were farmers. Obviously 66% of the Joads should have been from the town, then). It paints an exceptionally rosy picture of agricultural labor in California based on statistics produced by the Merriam Administration. If the relief system was so efficient in fighting poverty in 1935, one might think that it wouldn’t have been completely overhauled. Also, the author spends a whole lot of time flogging the fact that wages were higher in California than in Oklahoma. It was almost certainly true. It’s also true that I could make twice what I do now if I moved to New York City, and be poorer.
I dunno about that. My grandmother told me that in Bakersfield, they burned the book in the streets because it was so sympathetic to Okies. Most of my dad’s side of the family were migrant workers of one kind or another (some actual Okies, others just very similar) who ended up in California, and they were certainly extremely poor and not very welcome.
Yet another Houstonian chiming in.
I live at the university of Houston, and can attest to the rise in crime in the poorer areas of Houston. The University is located in the Third Ward, and last year post-Katrina, violent crime on campus rose tremendously. Lets just say that previously walking around on campus at night wasn’t a wise decision. Now you don’t walk around unless you are in a group, and you stay away from the major streets surrounding campus. A friend of mine was hospitalized from a random gang beating last year, and there were five others also brutally beat throughout the week, something that had never happened in a spree like this on campus. Breakins and carjackings also went up tremendously and the UH police department is now a very definite presence on campus as opposed to an occasional sighting.
Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Refugee was recorded in 1940, along with the rest of the Dust Bowl Ballads (the copyright date of 1960 at the bottom of the page is a renewal date).
Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin’ home every day,
Beatin’ the hot old dusty way to the California line.
‘Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin’ out of that old dust bowl,
They think they’re goin’ to a sugar bowl, but here’s what they find –
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
"You’re number fourteen thousand for today.
"Oh, if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks, you ain’t got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot
If you ain’t got the do re mi.
That’s the real reason that Houstonians revile the Katrina refugees so much. In Houston’s eyes (and in truth), the city went way above and beyond the call of duty in taking the refugees in and helping them out, and what do they get in return?
A bunch of ungrateful, violent criminals who are basically crapping where they eat. It’s no wonder that Houstonians would sooner be rid of them.
(I don’t live in Houston anymore, but the rest of my entire family does)
Another Houston resident checking in. I saw something immediately after the N.O. influx into our town that completely surprised me, although upon reflection you could kinda understand the sentiment. Still, at the time I was shocked.
Many of the “refugees” were met here with extreme resentment by Houston’s own economically challenged populace. Poor people here, many of whom the evacuees settled among, were very jealous of the FEMA checks, Red Cross assistance, church and orgazational assistance and even the publicity evacuees received.
That was bad enough, but unfortunately, it often came to a head between the children of each group who now were all attending the same schools. Several newscasts showed schools being disturbed to the point of police being called to break up fights between poor Houston kids and Katrina kids. And maybe the worst was the parents showing up at the schools and screaming at each other.
And this was almost immediately after the evacuation. Just made me sick to watch.
Oops, meant to add… I told my wife it should be called * “FEMAs Envy.”*
Some things never change.
P.S. That’s a great tune.