The fires which ravaged Southern and Central California last month have turned what used to be a vibrant and bustling cultural mecca into a charred wasteland, and the catastrophic effects are already beginning to make themselves felt well beyond the borders of the Golden State. According to Federal Emergency Management Agency, the destruction wrought by the fires has rendered a million and a half mostly well-off Californians completely homeless, and in many cases without work or even the prospect of it.
“There’s nothing left for an honest working man anymore,” said Andy Durgan, a 34-year-old marketing executive who was gassing up his Audi at the Nevada border. “It’s all been burned up and blown away. I told my wife that we’ve got to move on. We’ve got to find work or private school for Bridget and Richard. It won’t even be an option.”
His two children stared blankly out the window, faces gaunt from self-inflicted malnutrition, their clothes torn, yet fashionably dirty.
The situation is dire, indeed. FEMA estimates that almost half of those displaced by the fires have already left. Where are these homeless masses of migrants headed?
“Oklahoma,” said Joan Lunkins, a music agent formerly of San Bernardino County. “They’ve been passing out literature about the place, and the way they describe it, it sounds like the promised land. Great real estate market, burgeoning high-tech sector and amber waves of grain, the whole nine yards.”
Ninety percent of traffic leaving California is headed east, according to Highway Patrol statistics, so perhaps most Californians are following Lunkins’ example.
The sudden influx of cheap labor into Oklahoma has created problems altogether separate from the ones that caused Californians to leave in the first place. Exploitative hiring practices and low wages are just the most obvious problems which have appeared in the labor market. Additionally, the parts of California affected by the wildfires were home to a wide variety of middle- and upper-class professionals who have suddenly found themselves homeless. Writers Guild organizer Harry Collins is involved in the efforts to organize the recently arrived Californian migrants who, according to him, are “being taken advantage of by greedy hucksters.”
He said that “they pay these poor souls minimum wage to write prime time drama scripts, and they barely even get syndication royalties — it’s horrendous. If someone even makes a slight noise of protest, they’re out. There are five others to take his place. And these producers, they know exactly what they’re doing!”
The federal government is not in any position to offer much help. Defense spending and tax cuts have left social programs strapped for cash, and what aid the federal government has been able to offer has been limited to free tracts of suburban housing on the outskirts of Tulsa, Okla., and Oklahoma City. The houses, hastily built by federal contractors, are lacking in many basic amenities, such as variable-temperature wine storage, three-car garages, and many are not even pre-wired with audio/visual cables in more than two rooms.
Most refugees are profoundly dissatisfied with their situation, and some are even in open rebellion against the system which they see as taking advantage of them. Dr. Edward Finkel, an unemployed cosmetic surgeon, railed against employers who take advantage of the influx of cheap Californian labor.
“I say, don’t manage another portfolio!” he said. “Don’t write another movie script! Don’t attend one more board meeting! Don’t give these filthy rats a single stinking minute of your time!”
Finkel has also been highly critical of the lackluster federal response to the tragedy.”My counters are Formica, and there’s only space for two cars in my garage,” he said. “Is this living?”
Most migrants seem to be scraping by despite the complaints many of them might have. Some have said that the experience has given them new insights in to how the “other half” lives.
“This whole experience of losing everything has changed me,” said Howard Southerland, an upper-management professional who now works as a ditch digger for a landscaping company. “The other day, I bought my first wine-in-a-box for a house party, and carrying that to the checkout was probably the most humbling thing I’ve ever done. I have grown as a person, though. Definitely. I’m going back tomorrow, and I’m getting another one. To hell with poverty, I’ll get drunk on cheap wine!”