Since moving to southern California several years ago, I’ve become increasingly interested in the migratory patterns of the birds that use the “Pacific flyway” and of the Western monarch butterflies who arrive from further north each winter to shelter in groves in some of our beach towns. Some birds and butterflies travel thousands of miles from summer breeding or feeding grounds to winter havens, enduring many hazards along the way. I have yet to become a competent enough viewer of either birds or butterflies to fully appreciate the stamina and skill of these lofty migrators, yet finding even a small group of overwintering butterflies can thrill me.
Lately I’ve also been thinking about the migrations that occur among humans, sometimes planned, at other times due to natural or manmade disasters. My interest was piqued by a recent announcement that a government migratory camp for farm workers established during the 1930’s is about to become a California state park. Back then, much of the central U.S. had become a “Dust Bowl” of howling windstorms, lengthly droughts, and failing farms. The Sunset Migratory Camp (often called the Weedpatch Camp) in Kern County housed hundreds of Dust Bowl migrants in the late 1930s. It is a primary symbol of the 1930s ‘Okie’ migration, during which hundreds of thousands of displaced families from Oklahoma, Texas, and neighboring states moved to California’s agricultural valleys. (You can read more about the camp at https://dustbowlcamp.org/ and see a cabin picture at https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2013631386/.) The camp is now operated by Kern County; state park officials are working on “historical evaluations, site restorations, and educational programs before the formal transition of the property.” The camp was a partial impetus for John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, and was also the subject of some iconic period photographs of migrant children by Dorothea Lange.
Isabel Wilkerson’s comprehensive 2010 work, The Warmth of Other Suns, describes a different migration—the “Great Migration” of millions of African-Americans from the U.S. South. Wilkerson uses both statistics and stories to chronicle the outflow of about 6 million blacks from the South to cities of the North, Midwest, and West during the period 1910-1970. Fleeing legal discrimination, harsh conditions, threats, and harassment during “Jim Crow,” individual workers and sometimes entire families left the South in search of better opportunities and safer lives. By 1970, when the migration ended, over half of U.S. blacks lived outside the South, in contrast to barely 10% when the mass movement began. The rate of migration ebbed and flowed, based on changing economic conditions and the severity of oppression at different periods. However, it ended only when civil rights for blacks began to be better enforced in the South in the wake of both social pressure and legislation.
A more temporary, more idyllic migration came to my attention as I learned some of the history of the new-to-me city of San Diego: a summertime exodus to the beaches of Coronado Island during the early part of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1939, thousands of locals and neighbors from inland came to Coronado Island. The most well heeled stayed at the luxurious Hotel del Coronado. (The hotel is open, after recent renovations, if you are interested.) Those of lesser means could migrate to a “Coronado Tent City,” set up each summer south of the hotel. Hundreds of temporary red-and-white-striped canvas tents and palm-leaf covered cottages stretched along the beach. For fees ranging from $1.50 to $6.00 per week, travelers could rent platform enclosures with beds, linens, electric lights, and running water, with convenient access to shops, a public library, and restaurants. At its most popular, the tent city attracted up to 10,000 patrons per year.
Unfortunately, much modern migration is for reasons less pleasurable than summer vacations. Per the most recently available statistics: “Global international migrants increased from 220.5 million in 2010 to an estimated 304 million by mid-2024 (about 3.7% of the world’s human population), while annual global migration flows reached roughly 35 million people per year.” Globally, “the United States remained the leading destination country, hosting 52 million immigrants (of a total population of roughly 340 million).” The proportion of immigrants in the U.S., though at a relatively high level historically, is dwarfed by Qatar (76.7% migrant) and the United Arab Emirates (74% migrant). It is estimated that there are currently between 45 and 65 million immigrants in countries of the European Union, ranging from a high of just over 50% of the population in tiny Luxembourg to a low of under 3% in Poland.
Migrants sometimes relocate in order to gain employment and to better their economic conditions. Estimated financial remittances sent by migrants back to their countries of origin have surged dramatically in recent years, projected to reach a total of $905 billion in 2024 ($685 billion going to low- and middle-income countries). This amount surpasses the combination of both foreign direct investment and foreign aid. Migrants may also relocate to flee armed conflict or natural disasters: In 2024, global displacement reached a record 123.2 million people, including 36.8 million sheltered by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and 73.5 million persons who are internally displaced, living in their countries of origin, but not in their original home regions.
Blaming migrants will not solve anyone’s “immigration crisis.” If the best available current research is to be believed, our ancestors were all migrants at some point. Per Wikipedia, “Modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago. Following early localized movements and smaller, earlier waves, a major global migration out of Africa occurred roughly 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, leading to the peopling of Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas.”
We humans are never likely to become as skilled at migration as either birds or butterflies. However, if we want to survive and thrive as a species, it might behoove us to become both more compassionate and more skillful in how we treat the current migrants among us.
