Customer Reviews

Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie (Haymarket)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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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

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!

I grew up in central Oklahoma and can identify with many of the themes Ms. Dunbar-Ortiz writes about in Red Dirt. I think anyone who is on a journey of self-discovery or is attempting to reconcile his or her past will enjoy this book as much as I did. I rarely read literature about Oklahoma that makes me proud to be an "Okie" - this book does just that.

This book was my introduction to Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. I read it before I learned more about her and her career as an activist for the past 40 years. She reflects on her life from birth until her move to California. She grew up in rural Oklahoma during some of the worst years ever. These were the years that shaped her, the launching pad of her feminist, anti-family, pro-socialist, anti-war, ... efforts.

The reader can learn a good bit about the Socialist movement in Oklahoma in the early 1900's, the Green Corn Rebellion and the patriotic surge that accompanied World War I.

Roxanne's grandfather, one of the less 'disfunctional' family members was a Socialist and strongly pro-labor and imparted his views to her. She remembers him fondly. It appears that her abusive alcoholic mother influenced her ideas about the family and church. She had very little to say about her mother or father that is not negative. Considering these influences, the dire poverty of her early childhood, and her marriage 'up' the social ladder her views on things are not too surprising. Simple - yes, but undeniably true, at least in part. And that does not take away from her drive, talent and desire to make a positive change in the world.

You can learn more about Roxanne at her website, reddirt.com.

I think I will read Outlaw Woman, the next volume of her story.

if you like books about the old way of living,you will love this book. it brings back memories of my childhood...

I could not put this book down. It is an engaging book. I read it for some background research on John Steinbeck and the Grapes of Wraths. If you have read Steinbeck's masterpiece you have to read Red Dirt. I think Roxanne's memoir completes the story of the Joads. The psyche of the "Okie" comes alive and the drive of Roxanne to break away and then come to terms with it is fascinating. I loved this book so much that I use it for the Ethnic studies classes that I teach. I believe that to understand different ethnic groups we all have to understand what makes White America tick. This book delivers a much-needed look at the class divide among white America and no matter how much the poor whites have been abused by their richer cousins they still stand by their side. Why? Because they are white. This was a great ride

I lived in Oklahoma for the first 38 years of my life.
I never learned the real history of Oklahoma until I read this book.
A good story and interesting, my other friends and family from Oklahoma are very interested, too.

This book is biographical and relates the life experience of the author growing up as an Okie. Her Okie experience was earned near Piedmont just north of Oklahoma City. The author came of age during the 1940-1950s and also was swept up in that great migration to the dream world of sunny California. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz lived and experienced both worlds and has graciously shared her life experience with readers.

There is much to learn from this book. Mrs. Dunbar-Ortiz paints a vivid picture of what it was like growing up Okie and adds a little historical background that helps put the experience in a more realistic context. This book offers a peek at a way of life that has long vanished. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a glimpse of the world of the Okie during a more pristine age before the rise of high technology and the prosperous middle class of the 1960s.

I enjoyed the personal aspects of the story as well as the overall cultural framework and commentary. Books such as this make history a much more personal and interesting experience. I would read another book from the same author.