Too indigent for citizenship: Okie refuge, class, and (im)mobilities

This essay examines the 1933 anti-indigent law in California that led to the Supreme Court case of Edwards v California. This case provides a rich site to scrutinize the relationship Okie refuge, class and mobility. In 1933, California crafted a border blockage against poor Okie migrants, who left Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and Texas during the 1930s and 1940s. People, who migrated from these states, were all framed as Okies, as Californians saw poor, white migrants as a mass of Southerners, who all shared the same, undesirable qualities. Tapping critical refuge literature and Creswell's “politics of mobility” the author advances a theory of class-erasion that resulted from policy, law enforcement, public discourse, and corporate interests. However, Okie refuge-in-mobility out-witted authorities and made room for poor people in California's growing corporate agriculture economy.