Steinbeck Today

April 14, 2014 marked the official seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of The Grapes of Wrath. Penguin celebrated the anniversary by issuing a limited number of special edition copies of the book (Shultz). Meanwhile, numerous events are planned around the nation in recognition of the novel’s enduring impact on American culture. A brief survey of the many readings, theatrical and musical productions, movie screenings, galas, lectures, and other events scheduled in 2014 speaks to the innumerable ways John Steinbeck’s beloved novel has influenced artists and fans over the last seventy-five years. The sheer volume of artistic creations, including photography, plays, music, writing, sculpture, painting, translations, and scholarship, spawned by The Grapes of Wrath all over the world, is amazing and serves as a compelling testament to how the novel has strongly resonated with a hugely diverse population for seventy-five years.

The National Steinbeck Center launched its own celebration with a Route 66 road trip retracing the Joads’ journey from Sallisaw, Oklahoma, to a final stop at a migrant workers’ camp in Arvin, California in October of 2013. Staff from the Center were joined by the playwright Octavio Solis, artist Patricia Wakida, and filmmaker P.J. Palmer. The Penguin bookmobile accompanied the team’s RV along the way. The purpose of the journey was twofold: to reignite interest in the novel in new generations of readers and to record oral histories of the many people the travelers met along the way. Hundreds of hours of video of Americans telling their own stories of hope and survival were shot and await editing. Interested readers can view a short four-part video series, the “Journey Videos,” on YouTube. The videos poignantly encapsulate the spirit of the journey and provide a sampling of the many stories of perseverance captured along the way.

The travelers’ final stop at the model for the Weedpatch camp in The Grapes of Wrath, known as the Arvin Farm Labor Center, punctuated the grim reality of hundreds of thousands of migrants and their families in the United States today. The Arvin camp now houses a capacity of 438 mostly Mexican migrant workers who come to pick the produce in the nearby fields. Solis interviewed Jorge Guillen, artist and nearby resident. Guillen read from his poem, “Streets of Sunset Camp,” which is based on a relationship with a girl who stayed at the camp each summer in his youth. Guillen, who comes from a family of undocumented workers that was eventually granted amnesty in the 1980s, remembers the hardships of his family’s life and asks, “How many people eating a salad think about where the food comes from? [. . .] This isn’t 75 years ago, this is right now” (Temkar).

A documentary based on the film taken on the 2013 road trip will premiere at the 2014 Steinbeck Festival in May, the theme of which is “Onward.” The theme sums up not only the spirit of the Joads as they persevered on their own journey, but also the many stories of contemporary Americans who have remained hopeful in the face of their own various difficulties. Monterey County Weekly writer Arvin Temkar reports:

The stories collected by the team vary as much as the terrain they traveled to get them. Some interviewees remembered the Dust Bowl. Others talked about the recession. One man, a single father, spoke about his 7-year-old son getting cancer. “Every person we talked to, nobody felt sorry for themselves,” says Palmer, the filmmaker. “Some of them really had the right to.”

As usual, the Festival will convene an array of talented speakers, artists, and fans to celebrate Steinbeck’s legacy in America and their own lives. The documentary is sure to be a centerpiece.

The School of Arts and Humanities and the Public History Institute at California State University at Bakersfield have also planned a host of activities in 2014 that involve several public and private organizations across Kern County in celebrating the novel. Events include film screenings, a gala, and various lectures on topics ranging from social justice to 1930s American Modernism. There will be theater and children’s theater productions and...