America in Steinbeck's Time

Explain how California growers used seasonal labor demand, labor contractors, ethnic segmentation, and farmworkers’ exclusion from major labor protections to maintain a large, low-paid workforce.

Compare the living conditions and governance of informal migrant settlements with federally managed Farm Security Administration camps to assess the reach and limits of New Deal assistance.

Analyze one California farm-labor conflict to explain how migrant workers organized and how growers, local authorities, and law enforcement resisted them.

Corroborate an already-read episode from The Grapes of Wrath with a contemporary photograph, government report, or migrant testimony, identifying what the comparison supports, complicates, and cannot establish about 1930s America.