Anglais exposé sur Dust Bowl

I intend to speak about Okies and Dust Bowls. Okies , this was the name given to the American people who migrated to the Pacific Coast from 1935 to 1940. The came from the southwest States such as Kansas , Arkansas , Colorado and Texas. The living conditions in these States were dreadful ( horrible ) . The Plains suffered from drought ( sécheresse ) conditions. That is the main reason why thousands of people went west. It was impossible to grow anything. The land became very dry. It was not the only reason. Some other migrants decided to leave the fields because of mechanization. A lot of Oklahoma farmers rented their farms , in fact 60 % ( percent ) of them did it so the use of machines left them behind. Most of the migrants were farmers. We mustn’t also forget that moving and migrating were an habit in the search of a better life. At that time migrating means progress. California seemed ( semblait , le d se prononce t ) to be a promise land. A nice weather , a better land , higher salaries attracted a lot of them. The migration started in1935 up to the 40s. As we notice most of them were farmers but some were workers on the dole ( au chômage ). The living conditions on the Way to California were unpleasant ( pas plaisant ). It was the California Citizens Association which organised the whole ( l’entière ) thing.

The migrants were penned ( parqué ) in camps. The salaries were not good. But the migrants could constuct their own places. It was difficult for them to enroll into unions because of the opposition of the bosses. But most of them were not very interested to join the unions ( syndicat ). The Poor conditions very often ended in strikes ( grève ). Moreover they were not welcome by the inhabitants of the other States as they were moving west. The novelist John Steinbeck wrote about this in his famous novel the Grapes of Wrath. Photos of migrants were published by the FSA’s Dorothea Lange. A lot of Folk songs and country music came from this difficult period. A film was released in 1940 directed by John Ford as an adaptation of the novel. During World War II. Okies integrated themselves in the American society, remaining on farms or working in factories, living in the countryside or in cities. The impact of this period of migration is important concerning a tradition of cultural and religious conservatism ( tism se prononce tizm ).

Another reason why American peolple migrated west is because of what they called the Dust Bowls known as the Dirty Thirties. It was a period of dust storms which damaged the agriculture. The drought came in three Waves 1934,1936 and 1939. But in some regions the drought conditions lasted eight years. There were high winds. The land turned to dust. Huge clouds blackened the sky. These clouds of dust were named black rollers and black blizzards. This affected the States of Texas, Oklahoma , Colorado and Kansas. That pushed farmers to leave and to go west.

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