Unit Curation Project by Diego Cerna Aguila

1289243 — 2025-02-04 02:10:45 UTC

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. Africa for the Africans… at home and abroad!” -Marcus Garvey

This quote explores the deep meaning of ancestry and what it means to the decedent that follow in the following generations. Marcus Garvey emphasizes that if one doesn't recognize or is unfamiliar with where and what they came from, then there is so growth on your own. Garvey argues that it is important to look outside of yourself and acknowledge your roots. I personally agree with this, as someone with some knowledge of my roots, I feel the more one would embrace it, the more appreciative one would be with themselves.

Marcus Garvey, dressed in military garb, is driven around in New York City in 1922. He was a pioneer in celebrating Black nationalism, even in a Jim Crow-divided nation.

Bettmann Archive

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965503687/marcus-garvey-pan-africanist

1289243 — 2025-02-04 02:41:34 UTC

"Please help us. My mother is sick three year and was in the hospital three month and she came out but she is not better and my Father is [paralyzed] and cannot work and we are poor… We have no one to give us a Christmas presents and if you want to buy a Christmas present please buy us a stove to do our cooking and to make good bread." -letter to FDR from a 10-year-old girl, 1936 in Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letter from the Forgotten Man

Here is a letter from a 10-year-old girl who sent this piece of writing to FDR pleading for help. She is desperately asking for a helping hand in this forlorn situation she is in with her mother in the hospital due to an unknown reason and her father not being able to provide as he is paralyzed. She is essentially alone in her life now at 10 years old. This illustration connects to the quote as this girl is hoping now to be forgotten and left behind by her government and her president, FDR. FDR brought this to light as he proposed as a solution called the New Deal. Programs within this New Deal helped these people out for the most part and put them to work for a wage.

1289243 — 2025-02-05 03:00:02 UTC

"The rag town lay close to water; and the house were tents, and weed-thatched enclosures, paper house, a great junk pile. The man drove his family in and became a citizen of Hooverville-always they were called Hooverville…. And when the rains came the house melted and washed away. He settled in Hooverville and he scoured the countryside for work, and the little money he had went for gasoline to look for work." -from The Grapes of Wrath

This quote allows the reader to connect with how the lifestyle of many victims of the Great Depression was. It gives the reader a clear visual of how a failure of a period has caused so much distraught in the lives of thousands. The article above, dives deep into how these people fell into a ditch of quicksand and how they were failed by their country. The quote also illustrates how even though these people had close to nothing, they would still spend their time and the money that they have left on ways to find and search for opportunities.

A "Hooverville" dweller, Circleville, Ohio, c. 1938. (Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

1289243 — 2025-02-05 19:01:53 UTC

"We ain’t no paupers. We hold ourselves to be decent folks. We don’t want no relief. But what we do want is a chanst to make an honest living like what we was raised." -One of the down and out, in Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man

A time where migration/immigration numbers are skyrocketing, meant that more people would be victims of the Great Depression as life was already hard enough for the millions of American citizens. The video above shows a secondary source where author Amity Shlaes explores the time period of the Great Depression. She dives deep into migrant stories who struggled greatly during this time.

1289243 — 2025-02-05 19:18:03 UTC

"During the first quarter of the century the Mexcicano had been needed as a laborer. Many historians believe that the Southwest would have reverted to a desert without the Mexican. He had reduced the cost of labor for agribusiness, working at stoop labor which few Anglo-Americans, even the poorest, would perform. The 1930’s, however brought hungry hordes of Arkansans and Oklahomans to the SouthWest, displacing the Mexicans in the farm and in the city. Many Mexicanos were ford to go on relief." - from A Mexican American Chronicle

A Mexican immigrant explains the America's necessity of Mexican workers as they are needed as laborers during this time of the Great Depression. He also emphasizes a great move of farmers to the West to avoid the droughts and storms. The piece of fine art above shows and emphasizes the farm land that these laborers migrated to and had to work on. These farm lands were most prominent in California or the Midwest.

1289243 — 2025-02-06 04:13:05 UTC

"When these winds hit us, we and our misery were suddenly covered with dust. Here in the Texas Panhandle we were hit harder than most anywhere else. If the wind below one way, here came the dark dust from Oklahoma. Another way and it was the gray dust from Kansas. Still another way, the brown dust from Colorado and New Mexico. Little farms were buried. And the towns were blackened." - Texas farmer, in This Fabulous Century

The life of people in rural areas was extremely difficult in this period of time because so many factors attacked them at a time. On top of the Great Depression devastating effects which included the drastic fall in value of farm products, they had were also tackled by dangerous dust storms. These storms would destroy farms and take lives of thousands of farmers. The quote above from a Texan farmer describes these dust storms as "dark dust" and emphasizes how they buried farms and blackened towns. Furthermore, the poem provided above illustrates the dust storms seasonal appearance.

1289243 — 2025-02-06 05:54:29 UTC

"For the last three or four years we have had depression and suffered with my family and little children severely….I am living in this house for about ten years and when times were good we would put our last cent in the house and now I have no money, no home, and no wheres to go. I beg of you ro please help me and my family and little children for the sake of a sick mother and suffering family to give this your immediate attention so we will not be forced to move or put out in the street." - letter to F.D.R from Mrs. E.L., 1934, in Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man

A mother illustrates her and her children's suffering in the Great Depression. She pleads for a change as she cried out to FDR for his attention. Everything but her children has been swept away as she doesn't have any money or place to call home. She calls for FDR's help because she is worried that her and her children would need to move to the streets. She hopes that FDR can find a way to open up opportunities such as a job to be able to at least provide a roof for her children. The news article above shows the livelihoods of many women during this time and the opportunities that were slowly opening for them.

1289243 — 2025-02-06 17:19:39 UTC

"All that dust made some of the farmers leave; they became the Okies.. We stuck it out here. We scratched, literally scratched, to live. We’d come to town to sells our cream for nine cents a pound. If we could find a town big nough away from the dust, we could sell eggs at ten cents a dozen. Despite all the dust and the wind, we were putting in crops, but making no crops and barley living out of barnyard products only. We made five crop failures in five years."

- Oklahoma farmer, in This Fabulous Century

An Oklahoma farmer shares his first hand experience he was a witness and victim of during these distressing times. He emphasizes how nature ran out many of his fellow farmers who moved westward from the drought and storms. The image above is a graph in which illustrates how devastating these storms were. Midwest states such as the agricultural area of Oklahoma, the panhandle, was greatly affected by the drought and dust storms. It puts you in a perspective of how terrible this period of time was for rural areas as many elements of devastation piled on top of each other.

The Dust Bowl: Severe Drought during the Great Depression, 1930-1939. Courtesy of the Texas General Land Office.

1289243 — 2025-02-06 17:34:23 UTC

"As a result of the depression, by early 1930 a change had began to take place in the Anglo-American stereotype of Mexicans, at least in the SouthWest. Many Angelos in the SouthWest considered Mexican as a foreign, short-term laborer, who had no rights to welfare benefits. They thought the answer was ridiculously simple: send Mexicans back to Mexico. Many repatriated Mexicans had been living in the United States for decades and had children who were United States citizens by birth, who therefore could not be legally departed. The surprising aspect of repatriation is that very few Americans spoke out in defense of the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens, and a majority condoned these repartition programs."

- from The Chicanos: A History of Mexican American

In the West, a city I am familiar with and call home, Los Angeles was home to hundred of thousands Mexican immigrant workers. In the 1930's, a growing issue rose as Angelo-Americans considered the Mexican worker as a short-term worker who had no rights in many factors whatsoever. They wanted these workers deported as they no longer found use of them, which sets this time period even more backwards than it already was. The gif above shows migrant workers working in farms gathering crops and taking care of livestock, which took a huge hit in value in those years.

1289243 — 2025-02-07 06:16:58 UTC

"These storms were like rolling black smoke. We had to keep the lights on all day. We went to school with headlights on and with dust masks on. I saw a woman who thought the world was coming to an end. She dropped down on her knees in the middle of Main Street in Amarillo and prayed out loud: “Dear Lord! Please give them another chance.” -Texas schoolboy, in This Fabulous Century

From a boy from Texas who goes to school through the Texan farmlands describes the measures that the rural area people have to take when these dust storms hit their area. He emphasizes the necessity of light as these storms essentially makes everything dark and not visible to the eye. He also illustrates how the stress of the Great Depression, the sorrowful droughts, and terrible storms has pushed many to the absolute limit. Obviously, these times were a great test to not just individuals, but America as a whole.