“Highway 66 is the
main migrant road. 66 – the long concrete path across the country, waving
gently up and down on the map, from the Mississippi to Bakersfield – over the
red lands and the gray lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the
Divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to
the mountains again, and into the rich California valleys.”
When I first read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath seven years ago, I didn’t know what Route 66 was, and I certainly had no idea about the extent of its significance to
America’s history in the 20th Century. Nor did I suspect that, in
seven years’ time, I would be en route to Chicago to follow in the footsteps of
the Joad family and begin my own adventure down this historic road. Whilst I
was, strictly speaking, one of a “people in flight”, I did not “come into 66
from the tributary side roads”, but rather in the luxury of a Boeing 787,
replacing the Okie migrant’s Ford Ts, crammed full of his meagre, well-worn
worldly possessions with my own Oxford
Lads silk shirts and sunglasses. It is remarkable to think that, in the
space of 80 years, this road has transformed from a symbol of the “Final Hope”,
the last-chance saloon and difference between life and death for over 200,000
migrants during the Great Depression, to one attracting tourists from all over
the world, eager to experience the iconic route, famously coined the ‘Mother
Road’ by Steinbeck. Yet, although the purpose of the traveller may not stay the
same, his presence on Route 66 has and, most likely, always will. The reasons
for human travel may be ephemeral, but the urge, need and desire to do so is
forever in our nature. Standing on Adams Street at the start of the 2448
mile-long Main Street of America, on the 13th August 2015, my
circumstances could not have been further removed from those of the migrants of
the 1930s, but sharing a path with them instilled in me a sense of connection
between travellers by helping to bring them, and their plight, to life. Author
and avid traveller Robert Louis Stevenson once said that “There are no foreign
lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign”, and I think he captures the
essence of what my journey across America taught me; your identity is not so
much determined by where you are from, or even the times in which you live, but
by who you are. Travel provides for us the ability to overcome geographical
obstacles and meet others from different walks of life, and for this reason, it
is as essential to human nature as communication itself.
Some dwellings in particular along the way feel time-warped. Here is Oatman, an anachronistic reminder of early Route 66 left untroubled by the modern age.
One only has to converse with people who live and work along
the route to put this theory to the test. Regardless of which of the eight route-states
you are in, the words 'Route 66' are instantly met with warmth, as if its mention were reminding two strangers that they used to be friends. Many a time it paved the way for unexpected
kindness, whether in the form of directions, advice or even just a heartfelt “good
luck”, and always accompanied by a recognisable shimmer of pride in ‘their road’
and the role they are playing in its preservation and history. The way that Route 66 creates such a bond
between two people, born half a world apart, and brought together only momentarily,
summoned to mind the final scene of The
Grapes of Wrath, as Rose of Sharon nurses the old stranger as if he were
her own child. Even in an environment of rivalry between families desperately
struggling for survival, often against one another, Steinbeck articulates the
sense of togetherness and unity established by their shared journey, which
stems from the same essence of what bonds travellers and the guardians of the
road today.
If you squint, it 's almost possible to see a lone, distant Okie truck broken down in the merciless Arizonian mountains. Almost.
Route 66 has not, however, always been the paradigm of free
travel. Having successfully navigated six state-border crossings uncontested (or,
more accurately, about 15, after getting lost on the New Mexico-Arizona border
mountain-pass and spending the best part of an hour flitting between the two),
it came as a surprise to be stopped and checked on the final day at the
Californian border. I did not think much of this until later, when reading
about the darker side of the ‘Golden State’s’ Route 66 history. Steinbeck hints
at California’s anti-immigration stance in his novel, but never portrays the
reality of the LAPD’s border patrols and lethal measures implemented to deter
migrants from attempting to cross a border, which they were fully entitled by
federal law to do. Whilst this is not a period of their state’s history which any
Californian would be proud of, the continued existence of border control, which
surpasses that of all other states along Route 66, indicates an underlying
remnant of the state’s isolationist past.
Of course, it cannot be expected of a country, or state, to
open themselves up to totally uncontrolled immigration, but the ramifications
of California’s policy during the Great Depression were severe. Thousands (the
exact number will forever be impossible to calculate) of migrants were murdered
by the state’s rogue Police Department, and an estimated 6500 died every year
trying to board trains bound for the south-west. In total, of the migrants that
did complete their Odyssean journey, only 8% stayed in California for more than
a year, as land tenants and business owners worked in cahoots to create a work
environment incompatible with the number of new workers available. The effects
of such inhospitality, however, extended beyond the consequences for these
people; it formed a situation in which the right to travel was denied, or at
least restricted, by the circumstances of the individual. State law dictated
that only migrants with $100 dollars to their name could be admitted, thus endorsing
the power of material belongings to dictate not just the freedom to travel and
fulfil human nature, but the ability to survival.
It is a great shame, therefore, that, 80 years later, those
in power are threatening to make the exact same mistakes as the Californian
authorities of the 1930s. As I am writing, David Cameron has just confirmed the
admission of 4,000 more refugees, admittedly having been somewhat browbeaten by
the vast and inspiring charitable grass-roots efforts of the British people. Nevertheless, as we all know, this figure is
nowhere near enough; in fact, according to Mike Noyes, the head of humanitarian
aid at ActionAid, it ‘represents only 0.1% of the total number of Syrian
refugees’. In a moment which can be called, without any accusation of
melodrama, a catastrophe of humanity, such a brazen denial of the right to
travel in order to survive is dispiritingly reminiscent of the Californian
attitude towards the Dust Bowl migrants.
I am not for one moment comparing the dangerous voyages
across the Mediterranean of these refugees to a meander down Route 66 on a
summer holiday, but the principle of the human right to travel and be accepted
by the inhabitants of their destination is something which is not transitory, nor
should it be up to the discretion of those in power. We must lay aside our concerns
about mass immigration leading to a “lost Western culture” (the rationale
behind Viktor Orbàn’s initial reluctance to allow refugees through Hungary),
future socio-economic issues, and even the argument that those in need in our
own country should be our first priority. These are two separate issues, and
the serendipity of being born in our privileged nation, at a time of relative
prosperity, is no reason to form a callous attitude towards those who are in
need of our help, or see them as in any way less deserving of it.
As I see it, this is not just a test of human charity, but of
our right to freedom of movement. Route 66 has always been at its prime when it
facilitates travel, regardless of the reasons for it. This should be the right
of the traveller wherever he is.
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