Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie

Now a professor of ethnic studies in California, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz turns her eye back to her own roots as a "Dust Bowl Baby" in rural Oklahoma. In telling the story of her family and their hardships in the Depression, Dunbar-Ortiz introduces the reader to some fascinating characters who are certainly not the "white trash" caricatures of popular belief. Interspersed well with her own story are historical facts that give depth to the narrative and correct popular misconceptions about "Okies" (some of which were popularized by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath).