The yearlong celebration to honor the 75th anniversary of John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, started on Friday. Feb. 7 hosted by The School of Arts and Humanities and The Public History Institute at California State University, Bakersfield.
Festivities started at six p.m. at the VIP pre-party located in the Hayden Building at 1626 19th st with food, drinks, a meet-in-greet with country singer Dave Alvin and a live auction with exclusive items such as CD packages, Bakersfield Twang T-shirts, Dust Bowl brewing glasses, a framed photo of the burning of The Grapes of Wrath and an autographed guitar signed by Dave Alvin. All proceeds will benefit CSUB and The Ronald Mcdonald house.
The festivities then proceeded to the Fox theatre for a concert by Dave Alvin. Alvin sang his songs and classic country songs by Jimmie Rodgers, Woody Gunther and Merel Haggard. The songs Alvin sang included “King of California,” “Out in California,” “California Sun” “California Blues,” “Dust Bowl Refugee,” “Kern River,” “Like a River to the Sea,” “Do Re Mi,” and he ended with “fourth of July.”
President, Horace Mitchell attended the festivities.
“This book is an informative pictorial of the experiences with the dust bowl era and represents the history of farmers in this region,” Mitchell said.
The night ended with a free screening of the movie, The Grapes of Wrath at the Fox Theatre.
Dolores Huerta, a civil rights activist, was at the pre-party event.
“The story is repeating again. The people keep moving here to California to find work, but with the drought occurring there isn’t the same opportunities as there once was,” Huerta said.
Barbara Hannah and her husband Jack Loucks display Dust Bowl Trucks at different events to display. The purpose of his display is to teach people how thousands of people traveled migrated from the Midwest to Kern County during the 1930s.
“It has everything, but the kitchen sink. It even has a chicken,” Hannah said.
After 75 years, this book continues to represent Kern County. This book made history by displaying the struggles of a family who migrated to California to start a new life because they suffered economic hardships due to agriculture changes and a drought. This book at one time was banned because people believed that Steinbeck portrayed these families in a negative way.