...and the past predicted this...

The last book we are reading for the school year is Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. I have whined and complained, but I finished all 500 pages of redundant chapters about dust and sun and poverty. With every book this year, I've walked away respecting the work and what the author achieves whether I've actually enjoyed reading it or not. I always ask the kids if the book is still important/ relevant today and I thought I understood why GOW is. If you've never read the book, it follows a family to California as they travel looking for work as banks take over everyone's land and drive them into absolute poverty. The book is following migrant workers, so naturally I related the work to how we treat immigrants from Mexico. There is a chapter where the rich men are judging the "Okies" who've come to California and say about them: "They ain't human. A human being wouldn't live like they do. A human being couldn't stand to be so dirty and miserable. They ain't a hell of a lot better than gorillas..." It made me think for a brief second that I shouldn't judge so harshly these people, but it did not stop me from calling Amador this week to mow my lawn for cheap.

However, the book made even more sense for me as I was watching the American Idol Gives Back results show. Sounds a little ridiculous, but stick with me. I was a little agitated that they were focused on all these kids in Africa because the rate of poverty for children in the US is insane, but then I saw the part where Randy Jackson went to New Orleans. I am from Baton Rouge and when I hear anyone from Louisiana speak, black-white-cajun-whatever, I can always close my eyes and hear a little bit of home. It makes it that much harder when I watch stuff about Katrina, which I've been obsessed with since it happened. Anyways, Randy showed the FEMA trailer park with clean rows, one after another after infinite other, of white trailers and the kids playing in the shell of what used to be the community center and it all made sense to me. History repeats itself over and over and books are here to remind us of that. Flickr is misbehaving or I would show you, but the FEMA camp is an exact replica of the government camps like Weedpatch where migrant farmers back in the days lived. The reason that's important is that we still haven't learned our lesson or made progress. One would think in this day and age that a nation wouldn't allow its own people to live in the squalor some of them do, but as it was then, as it is now, as it was in Orwell's 1984, the upper class needs a worker class to survive, they can't allow them to improve their lives lest they gain too much power and the upper becomes the worker class, and most importantly human life is still not appreciated or valued. The upper class is vying for the money and will do whatever it takes to get it.

Sorry for the rant, but before my life goes to "A,B,C and 1,2,3" I should get some thoughts out while I still have them. All the novels I've read recently that deal with these social inequities emphasize that if these lower classes would unite and have a mentality of we instead of me, that by speaking in that one voice, changes can be demanded and will be provided. That's the same reasoning I've had for wanting to give up on politics, all of it. The me's have it, they own it, and there is little to be done about it. So my challenge to myself is to figure out how I can make a difference in my own way. How does one person make a difference?