Now that the United States has declared war on immigrants, it’s appropriate to look back to the Great Depression. John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath recalls a time when Americans faced persecution from their fellow citizens for the crime of being poor and desperate.
The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joads, an Oklahoma farm family who lose their land due to economic conditions and crop failure. Lured by the false promise of jobs in California, the Joads pack up their meager belongings and head west. There they encounter hatred and persecution.
Like the hapless souls crowding America’s southern borders today, the Joads scrabble to find work to feed their children. They live by the roadside in tents, too proud to beg, picking fruit to earn pennies, but unable to cope because thousands of other migrants are doing the same thing. Californians scorn them, brand them as “Okies,” threaten them with guns, beat them and burn their little tent communities.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Among the migrants there are many acts of kindness. Poor families pool their resources so that everyone has a bit of food or shelter for the night. Ma Joad, the mother in this story, is a pillar of strength, holding the family together when the men’s resolve weakens in the face of violence, floods, and starvation.
I won’t dignify the cold-hearted arguments against today’s immigrants by repeating them here. Instead, I’ll point out that the
United States was founded on Christian principles. Jesus taught us to love one another, and to put our faith in the certainty that God smiles upon us when we do. That faith sustains the Joad family despite the cruelty and rejection that accompanies their hardship.
The United States began as a nation of outcasts, whose founders fled their own countries to build better lives for themselves and their families. That is what the immigrants at America’s borders are doing now. They are fleeing desperate poverty, drug gangs, and tyrannical governments. If we are truly a Christian nation, it is our Christian duty to welcome them, not turn them away.
The Grapes of Wrath contains frequent profanity, a few racial slurs, and occasional obscenities, which account for my four-star rating. Otherwise, it remains a timely novel to prick our consciences and inspire us to oppose the agents of cruelty.
Featured by Chevron Ross
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Weapons of Remorse The Seven-Day Resurrection The Samaritan’s Patient
