MICHAEL YATES wrote:
> 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 waterfront 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
>
>
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