When Tom Joad returns home after spending several years in prison, he finds himself coughing up wind and dust. He gets home just in time to leave with his family, whose profits as sharecroppers have not been enough to continue to till the land. But there is not much land left to plough. Homeless sharecroppers like the Joads headed for California. John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (1939) accompanies the Joads on their journey.
In the video below Jonathan Kim explains a bit of the book and the 1940 movie produced by John Ford, suggesting that there are some startling parallels to what is happening today.
Links
Surviving the Dust Bowl (www.pbs.org).
"Steinbeck & The Grapes of Wrath" (you tube).
About the 1940 film "The Grapes of Wrath" (Literature Goes to the Movies).
