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Okie is an appellation, dating from as early as 1905, denoting a resident or native of Oklahoma. It is derived from the name of the state, similar to Texan or Tex for someone from Texas, or Arkie or Arkansawyer for a native of Arkansas. Pejorative connotation Historically, if someone used the term Okie (rather than "Oklahoman"), the intention was as an insult or a pejorative. Usually, residents of California and some politically motivated writers used the term to describe white and mixed-race poor migrant farm workers and their families forced to flee their farms during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Californians also used the term to describe any poor person migrating to their state, not just those from Oklahoma. Over the decades, the pejorative nature of the term has begun to change; many from Oklahoma now consider the use of the term to be either neutral (a shortened term for "Oklahoma") or even a matter of pride. Whether the term is pejorative or not today depends upon the intent of the speaker and the circumstances of the term's use. Great Depression usage
Dust Bowl era migrations In the 1930s, during the Dust Bowl era, large numbers of farmers, fleeing ecological disaster, migrated from the Great Plains and Southwest regions to California mostly along historic Route 66. More of the migrants were from Oklahoma than any other state, and a total of approximately 15% of the Oklahoma population left for California. Ben Reddick, a free-lance journalist and later publisher of the Paso Robles Daily Press, is credited with first using the term Okie, in the mid-1930s, to identify migrant farm workers. He noticed the "OK" abbreviation (for Oklahoma) on many of the migrant’s license plates and referred to them in his article as "OKies". Californians began calling all migrants "Okies," regardless of whether or not they were actually from Oklahoma. The term was made famous nationwide by John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. Californias "Anti-Okie Law" In 1937, California passed the so-called "Anti-Okie Law" (Section 2615 St. 1937, p. 1406) which stated, "Every person, firm or corporation, or officer or agent thereof that brings or assists in bringing into the State any indigent person who is not a resident of the State, knowing him to be an indigent person, is guilty of a misdemeanor," The statute was eventually overturned in 1941 by Edwards v. California (314 U.S. 160). Edwards had brought his brother-in-law from Texas to California and was convicted and sent to prison for six months. Changing usage of the term Will Rogers, himself a rich Okie immigrant to California, once remarked jokingly that the Okies arriving in California increased the intelligence of both states. In 1968, Oklahoma Governor Dewey F. Bartlett made Reddick, the originator of the California usage, an honorary Okie. Modern usage In the later half of the twentieth century, there became increasing evidence that the perjorative meaning of the term "Okie" was changing; former and present "Okies" began to apply the label as a badge of honor and symbol of the Okie survivor attitude. In one example, Republican Governor Dewey F. Bartlett launched a campaign in the 1960s to popularize Okie as a neutral term for Oklahomans; however, the Democrats used the campaign, and the fact that Bartlett was born in Ohio, as a political tool against him, and further degraded the term for a time. It has been said that some Oklahomans who stayed and lived through the Dust Bowl see the Okie migrants as being quitters who fled Oklahoma; but there is hardly a native Oklahoman who does not have some family member who made the trip. Most Oklahoma natives are as extraordinarily proud of their Okies who made good in California as are the Okies themselves—proud even of the Arkies, West Texans, and others who got painted with the same brush. Oklahomans usually use Okie with prejudice but it is rarely used jocularly too, similar to Hoosier by Hoosiers or redneck by rednecks, who also do not consider terms for themselves particularly denigrating. In California, "Okie" is still common slang with a meaning similar to "redneck." Novels Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, has often been criticized as a false portrayal of Okies intended to advance a leftist political agenda. Detractors point to his portrayal of Okies leaving because of bankers foreclosing on their farms of many generations. Many, if not most, of the migrants were tenant farmers and were constantly moving from farm to farm for their entire lives. Those who owned their own farms and left looking for work only sold them if they decided to stay where the jobs were. The novel was also banned by many libraries for its prurient portrayal of Rose of Sharon suckling a starving man. The more cynical observers opined that the scene was included just for the purpose of making his book controversial. In the Cities In Flight series of science fiction novels by James Blish, the term "Okie" was applied in a similar context to entire cities that, thanks to an anti-gravity device, took flight to the stars in order to escape the Earth's economic collapse. Working as a migrant labor force, these cities came to act as cultural pollinators, spreading technology and knowledge throughout the expanding human civilization. The later novels focus on the travels of New York, N.Y. as one such Okie city, though there are hundreds more. Also in On the Road, the road-novel written by Jack Kerouac between 1948 and 1949 (although it was not published until 1957), the term appears to refer to some of the people the main character finds while working on the cotton plantations of the south during his trips around the States. Motion pictures In the movie Chinatown, when Jack Nicholson's character, Jake 'J.J' Gittes is caught snooping in an orchard, he refers to one of the farmers as an "Okie" before being knocked unconscious by one of the farmers. Okies in music Okie poetry Other Okie fiction Trivia
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