We're in the common room of the hostel in Monterey, California. A brigade of Englishmen and women are finishing dinner. I am reading the Grapes of Wrath, for the eighth time. It seems appropriate here, near where the great canneries used to be and not far from Salinas. I was listening to some music, and I thought that Bruce Springsteen's The Ghost of Tom Joad would go well with the book:
Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air Look for me Mom I'll be there Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand Or decent job or a helpin' hand Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me"
The canneries are gone, replaced by a fancy waterfrong mall and an aquarium. But the farmworkers are still in the fields. The Okies have gone on to better things, but the stooped bodies, the pesticides, the company housing, the migrant workers hassled by the police---all remain. we saw workers in fields right next to the ocean. Artichokes, leeks, pumpkins, strawberries.
michael yates