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 John Steinbeck’s books are considered to be very controversial, yet many schools choose to include his books in their curriculum. What made these books controversial at the time? How did the events around the time period affect his thoughts and writings? His book //Of Mice and Men// was published in 1937 during the Great Depression. The [|Great Depression] was the time period preceding the Second World War. It was the longest most widespread depression, effecting personal income, unemployment, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, and international trade plummeted. This devestating depression hit the country hard, more specifically in his residing state of California (Encyclopedia of World Biography), the migrant labor unions formed and organizations under Cesar Chavez began to strike.

The term migrant labor refers to laborers in the United States who travel from place to place harvesting crops that must be picked as they ripen. Migrant labor remains almost entirely agricultural. They may travel on their own or be transported to supply farmers with needed workers (Columbia Encyclopedia). In 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to be president, him and his wife started numerous projects to improve the state of the country. His projects gave eight million jobs to people (ThinkQuest).

At the time there was a migration of farmers and laborers to the United States because of a combination of droughts, depression, and increased mechanization of farming. In 1938, half of the nation’s grain was harvested by machines that required five men instead of three hundred. This put two hundred thousand to three hundred fifty thousand migrants unemployed, underpaid, and underfed.

This was until Cesar Estrada Chavez. Raised in Arizona, a prime location of migrant labor, he devoted his life to union organizing and nonviolent social activism. He was deeply influenced by the nonviolent activism of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi, and [|Saul Alinsky]. His efforts benefited laborers in the fields and vineyards of the Southwest. Ever since he was a boy he moved from one migrant labor camp to another, attending 65 schools yet never graduating. In later years, he worked in Community Service Organization helping Mexican-Americans confront issues of immigration abuse, and four years later he founded National Farm Workers Association with a chunk of his own savings. Chavez went on to hold successful boycotts, for instance, he dramatized his fights against grape growers and lettuce producers by fasting and inviting arrest, like his idol, Gandhi. In 1966, Chavez’s union joined with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee becoming the [|United Farm Workers Organizing Committee]. After conflict with the National Teamsters Union, the two organizations came to an agreement granting UFWOC the sole right to organize farm workers. He had brought the nation’s attention to the dilemma of poverty-stricken migrant workers (Gale).

When George and Lennie go to work on a barley ranch they are given unclean quarters. As George walks over to inspect his bunk he finds a can to kill bugs (Steinbeck 19). This sparks his curiosity and demands the information about their previous resident. Steinbeck displays the life of farm workers, and the bunks. He describes the minimal personal space. He also describes how the roommates idolize the men in the western magazines, with their wealth and private farmland. George and Lennie hope to do the same after the gain enough money from this job. They don’t want to stay on the labor farm like all other members of the staff. “I ain’t got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain’t no good. They don’t have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin’ to fight all the time.” –George (Steinbeck 40). George knows that staying at the labor farm will destroy their hope and happiness. Throughout the book, Steinbeck creates this negative image of the labor farms just as he had pictured them throughout the nation and California.

Gabby Genuario

Works Cited  “John Ernst Steinbeck.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. Ed. Suzanne Michele Bourgoin and Paula Kay Byers. Vol. 14. New York: Gale Research, 1998. 416- 417. Print. "1930." Oracle ThinkQuest Library. Web. 08 June 2010. . "Chavez, Cesar Estrada Information | Encyclopedia.com: Find Chavez, Cesar Estrada Research." Encyclopedia - Online Dictionary | Encyclopedia.com: Get Facts, Articles, Pictures, Video. Web. 08 June 2010. . Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin, 1993. Print. "Of Mice and Men." ENotes (1998). LitNotes. Gale. Web. 7 June 2010. .