The Shifting of Community Dynamics

By the time the Joads were crossing the border into California, there had been dramatic shifts in the way that communities and individuals within those communities operated. It would be impossible to accommodate the massive number of people that migrated to California with the amount of land that they owned in Oklahoma, Iowa, or other Midwest states. Instead, the new housing projects featured homes that were closer together with small sects of land that could be cultivated for personal needs. The new housing developments featured shared services such as plumbing, laundry, and even community based political systems; “Central Committee keeps order an’ makes rules. Then there’s the ladies. They’ll call on your ma. They keep care of kids an’ look after the sanitary units. If your ma isn’t working, she’ll look after kids for the ones that is working” (392). The labor camps that the Joads reside within in The Grapes of Wrath were an extension of, or a precursor to the shift that was occurring in the development of working class housing in California. Houses and communities were moving towards interdependence and neighbors and moving away from the self-reliance necessitated by owning a farm and relying on agricultural products for the sustenance of a family. Just like within the labor camps people would live within communities where majority rules, and decisions are based upon interactions with others.

The organizers of the types of labor camps pictured above hoped that the way these communities were organized would lend to the extension of these practices into the culture of the Okies as a whole. However, as Brian Cannon discusses in his piece, "Keep on A-Goin": Life and Social Interaction in a New Deal Farm Labor Camp, he explores the ways that this was successful and some ways in which it was not. He discusses the ways that neighbors would rally around each other upon the death of a family member or to offset unemployment. Simultaneously, it seems that many of the ideas of cooperation and community fell on deaf ears amongst some of the campers, “Notwithstanding instances of cooperation such as these, camp residents generally failed to identity with one another and to cooperate politically and economically to the extent that administrators had hoped that they would, a tendency which became more pronounced as time wore on and the novelty ofthe camp and its organizations diminished” (21). This conflict demonstrates the nature of transition for the Joads and their fellow Okies. Transition and change almost always entails a struggle and this tension between the Okies, self-determination and the necessity in their new homes for interdependence makes sense. This, of course, extended into the maintenance of sanitary facilities as well, “Recognizing that not all residents held the same sanitary standards, the camp council passed ordinances prohibiting squatting above toilets with one's feet on the toilet seats, failing to flush toilets, drinking water from a camp faucet without using a cup, washing dishes or other possessions in the bathroom sinks, and failing to clean washtubs and washbowls after using them. However, some residents ignored these regulations, which were difficult to enforce” (27). As the Okies and Joads transitioned into their new home, they had to reconcile the attitudes of their past with a vision for their future. They would have to find a balance between their “rugged individualism” and the way communities would have to be formed for a sustainable future for all of them.