Citizenship Contested The 1930s Domestic Migrant Experience in California's San Joaquin Valley.

Alexander, Toni

Citizenship has come to the forefront of contemporary political, social, and geographical debate. Recent research has importantly highlighted the multiple scales at which citizenship is acquired and maintained, but has most typically theorized citizenship from the perspectives and experiences of transnational migrants or ethnic groups. In this article, I explore barriers to full citizenship through a case study of domestic Okie migrants to the California San Joaquin Valley in the 1930s. As poor whites pushed from their home states, Okies were not only subject to social and legal marginalization that paralleled the experiences of California residents of seemingly foreign origin. Despite holding national de jure citizenship, the domestic-born impoverished Okies faced public outcry and legal attempts at exclusion due to their perceived limited ability to assimilate into local de facto expectations of proper citizenship.

SAN Joaquin Valley (Calif.); CALIFORNIA; CITIZENSHIP; GREAT Depression, 1929-1939; EMIGRATION & immigration; RESIDENCE requirements

Southeastern Geographer, 2011, Vol 51, Issue 1, p186

0038-366X

Academic Journal

10.1353/sgo.2011.0004