Reverse Okies

A lot of us Oklahomans have tied the mattresses to the top of our cars and headed out of state looking for work. No matter where we live, we’ll still be Okies to our dying day, but we end up spread out all over the place. California has always had some strange attraction for folks like us ever since the Dust Bowl days. But now, Californians are tying their designer portmanteaus to the top of their SUVs, leaving their economic basket-case of a state, and heading east on the path of the old route 66 to seek their fortune in Oklahoma:

From 2004 through 2007, about 275,000 Californians left the Golden State for the old Dust Bowl states of Oklahoma and Texas, twice the number that left those two states for California, recent Internal Revenue Service figures show. In fact, the mid-South gained more residents from California during those four years than either Oregon, Nevada or Arizona. The trend continued into 2008.

As a result, it’s easy to find Californians – even former Sacramentans – living and working in Oklahoma City, a capital of the American heartland.

Ask these Okies-in-reverse why they traded the Golden State for the Sooner State – named for settlers who came there sooner than the Homestead Act allowed – and you’ll hear a lot of similar themes: easier to find a job; cheaper to buy or rent a home; better place to make a fresh start. Ask them why they stay in Oklahoma and they’ll add to that list a deep optimism that it’s a place where things are about to take off.

HT: Michelle Malkin