Civil Rights & Labor History Consortium | Photo and Document Gallery | Great Depression in Washington State | Dorothea Lange in Yakima Valley | Migratory worker in auto camp. Single man, speaks his mind. "Them WPAs are keeping us from a living."

Migratory worker in auto camp. Single man, speaks his mind. "Them WPAs are keeping us from a living. They oughtn't to do it. It ain't fair in no way. The government lays them off (that is in Work Projects Administration - 1939) and they come in because they're locals and take the jobs away from us that never had no forty-four dollars a month. I came out of Pennsylvania, used to be an oil worker. I'm getting along in years now and I seen lots of presidents and lots of systems. Voted for Roosevelt both times and I don't know of any president that ever leaned toward the laboring man like him, but this system they've got here in the fruit is a rotten system the way they work it." Yakima Valley, Washington. Photograph from the Library of Congress American Memory collection for the Great Depression in Washington State Project.

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