USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The migrants included people from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico, but were all referred to as “Okies” and “Arkies".

Detailed explanation-2: -These Dust Bowl refugees were called “Okies.” Okies faced discrimination, menial labor and pitiable wages upon reaching California.

Detailed explanation-3: -But by the end of the decade, they were the objects of scorn and prejudice. These migrants were called “Okies.” “Okie” is slang meaning “a person from Oklahoma.” But during the Depression, the term was used to refer to people from states neighboring Oklahoma as well, and it was often used derisively.

Detailed explanation-4: -Although the Dust Bowl included many Great Plains states, the migrants were generically known as “Okies, ” referring to the approximately 20 percent who were from Oklahoma. The migrants represented in Voices from the Dust Bowl came primarily from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri.

Detailed explanation-5: -Californians derided the newcomers as “hillbillies, ” “fruit tramps” and other names, but “Okie”-a term applied to migrants regardless of what state they came from-was the one that seemed to stick, according to historian Michael L. Cooper’s account in Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s.