When I returned to my hometown of Modesto in 1975 after 11 years in Southern California, one business that caught my attention was a curiously named smorgy on McHenry Avenue. I can't fathom EXACTLY what kind of food they served there, since I never did bother going in, but its name still resonates with me after all these years. I swear I'm not making this up, although I regret I never took a photo of the sign. It was called "Okie Frijole," which in a sense tells you everything you might want to know about Modesto.
Modesto is the county seat of Stanislaus County and the county has about a 40% Latino population, at least 90% being of Mexican descent. Modesto also holds a large population that migrated from Oklahoma during the dustbowl era and there are still remnants of that migration. The woman that was made famous in Dorothea Lange's "
Migrant Mother" photograph lived in Modesto's "Butler's Camp;" a trailer park that was once a migrant camp.
In the past 4 months I've had assignments to photograph performances by Dwight Yokum, Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard at the State Theater in Modesto. Ticket prices were in the $75.00 range and all performances were sold out. For a time in the 1980's, the State Theater had an incarnation as
"
Cine Mexico" So even in the abstract the connection continues.
I talked to a friend about this recently - her father is from Arkansas and mother from Oklahoma. Even though she's a successful businesswoman, she's down-to-earth and unpretentious. Her humble roots might be the source of her demeaner and she agreed that you can't understand the core of Modesto's soul without knowing the migrant influence.
So as Modesto boasts its agricultural prowess as the bread basket to the world, the workers that migrated from Oklahoma and then Mexico are too often forgotten or ignored. But if you look close enough, you'll still see evidence of the migrant influence which is inextricable from Modesto's identity.
Posted by: Adrian / 10:22 AM
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