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The Great Depression and Wartime Migration
Students will learn and teach each other about the Dust Bowl Migration during the Depression and afterwards. Students will understand how the large influx of people into California affected many Mexican Americans leading to the Mexican repatriation. Students will be able to connect the Japanese internment during WWI and WWII with the economic struggle and mass migration during this period. Students will be able to contemplate and extract the differences between migration, repatriation, internment, resettlement, and deportation. This lesson will help students gain a better understanding of the various legally sanctioned forced relocations in our nation’s history. This lesson will also help students understand how a certain demographic may be scapegoated during times of economic downturn or crises and how there continues to be an ongoing link between immigration policies and economic trends.
Fresno County Historical Society Archives.
LESSON AND INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL
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LESSON PLAN - The Great Depression & Wartime Migration to California
Fresno County Historical Society.
Presentation Assessment Rubric
Group Assessment
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES
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Source Material: Black Okie
Article by photographer and author Ernest Lowe. Harvesting My Life: Six decades of Ernest Lowe's offering to the world
California Odyssey Project & Dust Bowl Migration Archives, California State University, Bakersfield
Dorthea Lang Digital Archive, Oakland Museum of Califrornia
Migratory Worker Problem Belongs to the Entire Nation, by Paul Friggens, Oakland Tribune, April 1940
Teachers Open Institute; To Hear Outland, Santa Maria Times, September 1943
Source Material: White Okie
Dorthea Lang Digital Archive, Oakland Museum of Califrornia
The Great Okie Migration, Smithsonian American Art Museum
California Odyssey Project & Dust Bowl Migration Archives, California State University, Bakersfield
The Dust Bowl Migration Poverty Stories, Race Stories, by James Gregory, University of Washington
Agricultural Crops - Cotton
Cotton pickers in the Field
Agricultural Crops - Cotton
Agricultural Crops - Cotton
1/9
Citizenship Contested: The 1930s Domestic Migrant Experience in California's San Joaquin Valley, by Toni Alexander, Southeastern Geographer, Vol 51, No 1, Spring 2011
Migratory Worker Problem Belongs to the Entire Nation, by Paul Friggens, Oakland Tribune, April 1940
Primary Sources: Mexican American
Emilano Children: Patricia Perez, Manuela Emiliana, Rodolfo Pedro, circa 1890. Fresno County Histor
Avila Family, circa 1948. Fresno County Historical Society Archives
Perez White Blacksmith Shop in Fresno on K Street, circa1895. Fresno County Historical Society
Emilano Children: Patricia Perez, Manuela Emiliana, Rodolfo Pedro, circa 1890. Fresno County Histor
1/6
America's Forgotten History of Mexican American 'Repatriation', Fresh Air, NPR, 2015
California Odyssey Project & Dust Bowl Migration Archives, California State University, Bakersfield
Latino Americans: Identiy, Immigration & Economics: The Involuntary Deportation of the 1930s, PBS
Operation Wetback (1953-1954), Immigration History, The University of Texas at Austin, 2019
Source Material: Japanese American
Kunishige Family Photos, Circa 1915
Kearney Vineyard cook Tozuchi (Harry) Kunishige, circa 1925. Kunishige Family Photographs, Kearney V
Tozuchi (Harry) and Hara Kunishige with sons Fred and Kearney in automobile behind Kearney Mansion a
Hiro Kunishige, son of Kearney Vineyard cook Tozuchi (Harry) Kunishige, at Kearney Park pool, circa
Kearney Vineyard cook Tozuchi (Harry) Kunishige, circa 1925. Kunishige Family Photographs, Kearney V
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Pinedale History Project Photo Collection
Japanese internees waiting to board train for Camp Pinedale, Tacoma, Washington, 1942. Tacoma Public
Japanese internees boarding train for Camp Pinedale, Tacoma, Washington, 1942. Tacoma Public Library
Soldiers of Japanese Descent Reach Fresn
Japanese internees waiting to board train for Camp Pinedale, Tacoma, Washington, 1942. Tacoma Public
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Silent Sacrifice: Stories of Japanese American Incarceration in Central California and beyond, Valley PBS, 2018
PBS Film to Chronicle WWII Freedom Loss for Valley Japanese Americans, by John Sammon, Nikkei West
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, May 30, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, May 23, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, June 27, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, June 20, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, June 13, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, June 6, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, July 14, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, July 10, 1942
Pinedale Logger, Pinedale Assembly Center, July 3, 1942
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