Commentary: PERSPECTIVE ON EARLIER IMMIGRANTS : Scorned Outsiders of Another Era : The Okies of the late-1930s were blamed for job losses, social decay and school overcrowding. Sound familiar?

They were accused of “shiftlessness,” “lack of ambition” and of “stealing jobs” from native Californians.

They were intensely religious people, yet local churches shunned them. The school districts and public health officials felt overburdened and encroached upon by their children. There were attempts to segregate the children into separate classrooms or mobile schools.

The State Chamber of Commerce attributed higher tax rates to them. The state superintendent of public schools labeled them “a calamity.” Schools were in budgetary trouble. Teachers were called on to give extracurricular tutoring. Local residents were faced with a dilemma: If school facilities were improved, would it just attract more of them? But then again, wouldn’t the local children be penalized if no more money was invested in the schools? What should one do?

A report was published. Some of the recommendations included fingerprinting of transients and forming a blockade with the sole intent of frightening away those seeking work in California. The report found an audience in Los Angeles. The police chief ordered his officers to the state lines to create a “bum blockade.” New relief laws increased residency requirements and reduced the amount of welfare checks. Elected county officials sent telegrams to the President demanding more federal aid. Headlines demanded action against the “migrant horde invasion.”

The time was the 1930s and the migrant horde was composed of Depression-racked Americans seeking jobs or fertile farmland. These white Midwestern Protestants came from Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas--but generically, scornfully, they were lumped together as “Okies.” By 1938, Okie immigrants were the object of a hysterical outpouring of anti-migrant rhetoric and public policy.

They became the focus of all the problems facing California at that time. Interest groups and unscrupulous politicians turned the migrants into potent symbols of social degradation.

A camp song popular with migrants reflects the atmosphere of unwelcome:

Rather drink muddy water

An’ sleep in a hollow log

Rather drink muddy water

An’ sleep in a hollow log

than to be in California

Treated like a dirty dog

The migrants were hard-working family people, but because their agricultural labor was seasonal, they used government relief checks to help keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. The state’s response was increasingly punitive restrictions on relief recipients, including, after 1940, a five-year residence requirement to qualify.

Like many of California’s new immigrants of the last decade, the Okies came to California in response to desperate and economic deprivation. They came vulnerable and disoriented. The were vilified, socially rejected and economically exploited. They became the butt of derogatory jokes and the focus of political campaigns in which candidates made them scapegoats for a shattered economy.

The Okies were American citizens, but citizenship did not protect them from bigotry, ignorance, greed and hate.

Many of the new immigrants to California are not yet citizens and many are people of color, compounding their vulnerability to hate. Unfortunately, California has more than its share of politicians who prefer button-pushing to formulating sound public policy. California’s history is replete with exclusionary movements; previous targets include Chinese, Japanese and Mexican immigrants. Restrictive legislation and even vigilante groups have long been weapons against newcomers.

California owed its years of prosperity in part to a steady stream of ambitious, hard-working immigrants. The new immigrants are not the cause of our economic slump, but they are an easy, powerless target for politicians who are trying to deflect blame from themselves. It’s something to keep in mind as we approach next year’s statewide political campaigns.