The Four Winds

by Kristin Hannah

There was a pain that came with constant disapproval; a sense of having lost something unnamed, unknown. Elsa had survived it by being quiet, by not demanding or seeking attention, by accepting that she was loved, but unliked.

“Wash up. Put your things away,” Mrs. Martinelli said. “We will see you in the morning. Things often look better in sunlight.” “I don’t,” Elsa said.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.… The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. —FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Although she hadn’t seen her parents for years, it turned out that a parent’s disapproval was a powerful, lingering voice that shaped and defined one’s self-image.

There was something she hadn’t known when she went into marriage and became a mother that she knew now: it was only possible to live without love when you’d never known it.

Apparently you couldn’t stop loving some people, or needing their love, even when you knew better.

When Loreda’s shoes wore out, instead of buying a new pair, Elsa cut out pieces of cardboard and fit them carefully inside the shoes.

Americans weren’t supposed to take handouts from the government. They were supposed to work hard and succeed on their own.

Elsa saw how people moved away from him, drew back. None of them could afford being seen with a Communist.

Poverty was a soul-crushing thing. A cave that tightened around you, its pinprick of light closing a little more at the end of each desperate, unchanged day.

Loreda’s fingers traced the card reverently. Elsa knew that a library card—a thing they’d taken for granted all of their lives—meant there was still a future. A world beyond this struggle.

“It’s all about class struggle, isn’t it? Serfs against landlords throughout history. Marx and Engels are right. If there was only one class, where everyone worked for the good of all, it would be a better world. We wouldn’t have people like the big growers making all the money and people like us doing all the work. We starve while the rich get richer.”

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,”

“They don’t want to pay us enough to live on.” “Exactly.” “How do we make them pay?” “You’ll have to fight for it.”

“Workers Alliance Un-American.” “I’ll tell you what’s un-American, and that’s big farmers getting richer while you get poorer,” Jack said.

They’re calling it the No Work, No Eat policy.

“They’re already at risk,” she said. “They can’t be taught that this is what we deserve, that this is America. I have to teach them to stand up for themselves.”

“It’s legal. Hell, it’s the very essence of America. We were built on the right to protest, but laws are enforced by the government. By the police. You’ve seen how they support big business.”

“Eight years ago, Mexicans picked almost all of the crops in this great valley,” Jack said. “They came across the border, moved into these fields, and picked the crops and moved on. February for peas in Nipomo. June for apricots in Santa Clara. Grapes in August in Fresno, and September here for cotton. They came, they picked, and they returned home for the winter. Invisible to the locals at every stage. Until the Crash of ’29 broke the system and made Californians afraid for their jobs. They feared who Americans always fear: the outsider. So the state cracked down on illegal immigrants and called the Mexicans criminals and deported them. By ’31, the majority of them were gone or in hiding. It would have been a catastrophe for the agriculture business, but then…”—Jack held out his arms—“the Dust Bowl. The drought. The Great Depression. Millions lost their jobs and their homes. You came west, needing jobs, just wanting to put food on your tables and feed your families. You took the Mexicans’ places in the fields. Now, your people make up ninety percent of the pickers. But you don’t want to be unseen, do you? You came to live here, to put down roots, to be Californians.” “We’re Americans!” someone yelled from the crowd. “We got every right to be here!” “Rights,” Jack said, looking out at them. “They matter in America, don’t they?” “Yes!” “Here you have the right to be paid for your labor, and fairly. You have the right to a living wage, but you have to fight for it. They won’...

It wasn’t the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it.

Love is what remains when everything else is gone. This is what I should have told my children when we left Texas. What I will tell them tonight. Not that they will understand yet. How could they? I am forty years old, and I only just learned this fundamental truth myself. Love. In the best of times, it is a dream. In the worst of times, a salvation.

A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.

As I write this note, it is May 2020, and the world is battling the coronavirus pandemic. My husband’s best friend, Tom, who was one of the earliest of our friends to encourage my writing and who was our son’s godfather, caught the virus last week and has just passed away. We cannot be with his widow, Lori, and his family to mourn.

Three years ago, I began writing this novel about hard times in America: the worst environmental disaster in our history; the collapse of the economy; the effect of massive unemployment. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the Great Depression would become so relevant in our modern lives, that I would see so many people out of work, in need, frightened for the future.

Although my novel focuses on fictional characters, Elsa Martinelli is representative of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who went west in the 1930s in search of a better life.