Okie

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An Okie is a person identified with the state of Oklahoma, or their descendants. This connection may be residential, historical or cultural. For most Okies, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Oklahoman. While not an official demographic used or recognized by the United States Census Bureau, Okies, due to various factors, have developed their own distinct culture within larger social groupings both akin to and separate from Midwestern and Southern influences. Included are their own dialect, music, and Indigenous-derived folklore. In California (and to some extent, Oregon and Washington state), the term came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma coming to look for employment. The Dust Bowl and the "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in over a million migrants, many headed to the farm labor jobs in the Central Valley. A study in the 1990s indicated that about 3.75 million Californians were descendants of this population. By 1950, four million individuals, or one quarter of all persons born in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri, lived outside the region, primarily in the West. Prominent Okies included singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie and country musician Merle Haggard. John Steinbeck wrote about Okies moving west in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, which was filmed in 1940 by John Ford.