In purely economic termsfor those who always look for that explanationthe people of the Watts area have been making do. Their economic privationsagain in economic termswere bearable. and people go to California in droves precisely because their expectations over the years have been realized. that livings are made. and there is progress year after year. The average Negro moving into Los Angeles couldcanhope more realistically for material progress than could the refugees who trekked there during the depression period. whose hopelessness was written into literature by John Steinbeck in "Grapes of Wrath": to whom it did not. however. occur to go about shooting innocent people. And yet they all. in the Watts district. or rather a substantial number of them. became animals. The statistics are widely known30odd dead. $200 million in damage.
Identified stereotypes
Refugees are stereotyped as prone to violence and criminality.