Drawing on the stories she heard in her early years, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz explores the lives of poor rural whites in the USA who are often the backbone of the national campaigns against abortion and for prayer in school. They are also the soldiers of the militia movement and staunch critics of the US government. This book aims to take the reader into the minds of this group of people in order to understand their faith and sense of loss.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
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).
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
At once sweetly nostalgic and inexorably grim, a true study of light and dark. -- Village Voice
Dunbar-Ortiz's most important achievement is to put class back on the rural map where it belongs. -- Los Angeles Times
With all its passion and pain, this is a fascinating snapshot of rural American life. -- Publishers Weekly
Dunbar-Ortiz's most important achievement is to put class back on the rural map where it belongs. -- Los Angeles Times
With all its passion and pain, this is a fascinating snapshot of rural American life. -- Publishers Weekly
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dunbar-Ortiz has produced an American classic in biography.,
By Ron Roberts (ronald.roberts@uni.edu) (Cedar Falls, Iowa) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Haymarket) (Hardcover)
With the publication of Red Dirt Dunbar-Ortiz has made a major contribution to American biography. She has managed to write a Steinbeckian account of her childhood and youth in Oklahoma in the 1950s. The humanity and oppression of poor white people is writ large here. Red Dirt is informed by a feminist and class analysis but with great grace and touching honesty. like Meridel LeSueur's novels of 60 years ago, Dunbar-Ortiz shows the quotidian lives of working people who are ignored or riduculed by the outside world. The book is clear eyed and rich in detail. I used the book as a required text in a Sex and Gender course and it was a great hit among my students.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
history and struggles of the frontier settler class,
By A Customer
This review is from: Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Haymarket) (Hardcover)
...The best of autobiographical works are those that convey, in the telling of one life story, larger truths than those we experience as individuals. To accomplish this feat with seeming effortlessness, as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz has done with Red Dirt, is to create not only a valuable historical record, but a literary work that is a pleasure to read. Employing the finest storytelling skills, Dunbar-Ortiz lovingly recollects her youth in Oklahoma and the family dynamics she experienced "growing up Okie" during the mid-20th-century. In the process, she touches upon a host of social issues--among them racism, sexism, and economic disparity--that have plagued the U.S. since its earliest days. Perhaps most importantly, she offers one resounding voice from among a vast population--namely, the white underclass--that consistently has been underrepresented in historical texts, and misrepresented in popular culture. Exploding the notion of 'poor white trash,' Dunbar-Ortiz offers three-dimensional alternative as she reconstructs through her personal memoir the history and struggles of the frontier settler class and its descendants. As we move into the next century, Red Dirt is a text of vital significance to our collective humanity
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must Read,
By
This review is from: Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Haymarket) (Hardcover)
I love this book. A book written about my home state with honesty and clarity of what it means to be Okie. Class struggles, hard working people, historic pain and abuse and the eventual dementia of a woman struggling with her suppressed indianess. Keep the spirit of the Wobblies alive!
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