As I continue to write about the ongoing New American Diaspora, I often consider the possibility that I have a special calling to write on this subject.
I raise this prospect for several reasons:
I am a distant relative of President Herbert Hoover of Hooverville notoriety and thus I am charged with some sort of cosmic duty to rectify his inaction and indifference during the Depression. How these rectifications may occur is unknown to me as of this writing.
I know what the term “Hoover Flags” means. It was coined to describe the image when a broke man turned out an empty pants pocket and it swayed mockingly in the breeze.
My father taught me this phrase. He remembers seeing men wave their Hoover Flags during the Depression and also seeing Hoovervilles from a train as a kid.
My father was part of the Grapes of Wrath American Diaspora associated with the Dust Bowl in the Depression, His mother had died, his dad remarried, then he died, and my father's step mother took him and his two younger brothers west, not to California like in the novel, but to Oregon to start over in Pendleton. My Oregon roots are a direct result of a diaspora caused by the greatest man-made environmental disaster in American history and compounded by a rapacious system of bank foreclosures and an absence of government aid to keep people on their land.
That diaspora was certainly different than the current one underway, but there are some striking similarities as well. For one, members of both diasporas engender a lot of extreme hatred in people. Californians hated the Old Joads when they hit the border. Many Americans hate the New Joads when they camp on concrete.
Five years ago, I suffered a personal extinction of self and became an American Pariah. The resulting isolation and massive marginalization led me into direct contact with men and women who were nameless, afflicted, addicted, indigent, helpless, homeless, checked out, defeated, gone, exhausted, blasted, ground up, insane, alienated and angry. This contact inspired me to write about what I observed and experienced.
This contact also provided me a vantage point to write from that no other American writer that I am aware of has ever enjoyed—if enjoyed is the word. I should add that I wouldn't wish my time from this vantage point upon my own worst enemy.
So, if someone challenges my credentials to write about the New American Diaspora or to even call it that, I point to these reasons as a rebuttal.
Certain;y no challenge here Matt. Anyone who has read about your time with Bonnie & Clyde will back you up. carry on!
That being said, I am prompted to go back & do some more reading about Hoover and the early years of the Great Depression. Kinda think that your ancestor may be taking a lot more of the blame than he might deserve - especially after discovering more about Woodrow Wilson's lack of action during the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919 and beyond....
Keep writing, Matt. Anyone who carefully reads your essays, is not going to challenge the credentials of someone who conveys the perspective you do so well.