The Great Depression In California

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The economic downturn that followed in the decades after the railroads did not go unnoticed by the peoples of California. They protested mightily against the monopolies of the railroads. in a variety of ways. Writers of the time railed agains the evils of the railroads, and laborers organized to try and fight for their California dream. As Frank Norris writes in The Octopus: “They own us, these task-masters of ours; they own our homes, they own our legislatures. We cannot escape from them. There is no redress. We are told we can defeat them by the ballot-box. They own the ballot-box. We are told that we must look to the courts for redress; they own the courts. We know them for what they are-ruffians in politics, ruffians in finance, …show more content…
The reality that they were confronted with in California was startlingly bleak. Most of the immigrants came seeking agricultural jobs, and it was in the agricultural sector where the laborer had the least leverage. Unions did not become prevalent in rural areas until the 1960s, and as such many depression era immigrants remained jobless upon arrival in California. The refuges of the dustbowl, put stress many native Californians and Mexican immigrants were forced to live in hastily constructed shantytowns, and seek partial employment when they could get it. Their California dream crushed by the rigged system they were forced into to …show more content…
The rise of suburbia had the effect of homogenizing the populations of California’s cities, as it was generally whites that left for the new housing tracts. This was due to suburban life being more expensive than life in cities, as well as the blatant racism of the housing developments. Most tract homes had stipulations in the contract that the purchaser had to be of white decent, and could could only be sold other whites. This caused many inner city communities to become homogenous and non-white. This effect, along with the disappearance of industrial jobs from the inner cities, led to municipal and state governments racially discriminating against certain neighborhoods monetarily. The cumulative effect was the eradication of the potential the denizens of these communities had to achieve the California
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