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Jun 25 2009, 9:41 am by Matthew Cooper

The New Tom Joads

The Wall Street Journal has a great story this morning about people who have become semi-nomad because of the recession. (Subscription required.) Our own Christina Davidson is making her own recession roadtrip. I recently rented an apartment from a former Democratic press secretary, Jill Greenberg, who is riding out the recession in South America, as much for adventure as economic necessity. Makes you think of Tom Joad from The Grapes of Wrath and his famous speech and how it might be written today:

"Wherever there's a foreclosure on a condo, Ma, I'll be there....Wherever there's a banker turned barista, I'll be there...."

Are there political implications to this, the new Okies, the new migration of the economically displaced? Probably not. Most people aren't getting all peripatetic in order to earn a living and so it's not some constituency that needs catering to. On the other hand, it's not impossible that the recession will stir forces that will lead to or exacerbate large scale dislocations. Michigan was emptying out before the recession came. What's it going to be like by the time of the 2020 Census? Our former Atlantic colleague, Nicholas Lemann, has written extensively about the great black migration from South to North in the middle of the last century. In general, recessions haven't been enough to shake already prevalent trends, but they probably speed them up.

The political party that figures out migration patterns is going to have a huge advantage. Obviously, at the moment, the growing Hispanic population and its fanning out far beyond the West and Southwest had been a boon to the Democrats. The party that recognizes that we're all migrants now, or at risk of becoming them, would have a big advantage. Is it any wonder that the always cutting-edge HBO is moving ahead with "Americatown," a series set 25-40 years in the future with struggling American migrants huddled in the shadows of a foreign city. America's always been a mobile society, but the forces roiling the economy are maiming it more so, and it'll be interesting to watch which party gets it first.

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Comments (2)

chillsm00th

This would be an interesting piece, except for the fact that Americans are moving around LESS than they have since World War 2, and thus at rates that are almost certainly far below those experienced during the Depression and Dust Bowl.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/world/americas/21iht-relocate.1.18842965.html

"The monthly Current Population Survey found that fewer than 12 percent of Americans moved since 2007, a decline of nearly a full percentage point compared with the year before. In the 1950s and 1960s, the number of movers hovered near 20 percent.

The number has been declining steadily, and 12 percent is the lowest rate since the Census Bureau began counting people who move in 1940."

24AheadDotCom

Actually, a good part of the "internal" Hispanic migration is actually those who are taken to drop houses near the border by smugglers and then sent to other cities. That's quite a bit different from the Okies. But, I guess no one expected Matt Cooper to understand that.

On a more Joad-like note, few months ago, I sent an open letter to the Center for American Progress suggesting how they could help the homeless in Fresno find work in the fields not too far outside that city. Oddly enough, I never heard back from them. Maybe Cooper could make himself useful by trying to see if they want to back my plan.