2026 Spring Read: Understanding Migrants in Depth

Understanding Migrants in Depth
by Mildred Rugger

Hi, everyone. This is Mildred Rugger from Canyon, Texas, for the 2026 Spring Read of HPPR Radio Readers Book Club.

In re-reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, I was reminded why I read several of his books during high school. His books immerse me in the world he is recreating, and that world is usually unlike my own. His books allow me to see unfamiliar landscapes, to hear the voices of people I don’t live with, to smell and taste food I’ve never had, and to feel sensations that my comfortable life doesn’t include.
          
In The Grapes of Wrath, I encounter folks that, on the surface, do not seem like folks I would want to get to know. My language and behavior are very different from the language and behavior of the Joads and the other migrants they meet along Route 66 and in California.
          
It turns out, though, that I DO want to get to know these folks. They are people who persevere in unbearable circumstances. Though they suffer, they also find joy and love. They frequently give to others, even when they don’t have enough for themselves. They are industrious and smart in trying to find ways to survive in a new, confusing environment.
          
And it turns out that folks like these are part of my family history. My ancestors migrated to the United States. I’m not sure why they left Europe, but the same types of reasons keep recurring throughout history. Sometimes people migrate due to changing environmental factors such as the drought that led to the Dust Bowl. Sometimes due to technological change such as ever bigger and better tractors plowing through small farms. Sometimes due to the need to get out of the way of powerful people pushing for ever increasing control or profits without regard for what happens to the “little people.”

Recent family history connects even more closely to this story. My mother might easily have been with her family on Route 66 heading to California during The Great Depression. She was born in 1925 on a farm just outside of Olton, Texas, about 80 miles south of Route 66. Two factors saved her family from the need to migrate. First, a family inheritance allowed them to pay off the bank loan on their farm a few months before the stock market crash in 1929. Second, they were south of the worst of the Dust Bowl, so they could grow enough to survive.

The Grapes of Wrath makes me consider not only migrants but also how people treat migrants. Some Californians treat the Joads and other migrants with compassion and respect their dignity. Some Californians are angry with these newcomers out of fear of losing their own precarious position in society. Powerful Californians treat the so-called Okies as if they are just cheap parts in a machine, easily worn out and replaced.

This is Mildred Rugger for HPPR Radio Readers Book Club, wondering how we each treat migrants in our communities.