Planting Seeds of Wrath in ‘Steinbeck Country’

SALINAS, Calif. —  Outside the John Steinbeck Library here, a life-size statue of the hometown legend and Nobel Prize-winning author of “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Of Mice and Men” sports a somber new adornment.

Someone put a black armband on the statue’s left bicep to symbolize discontent over the city’s unliterary proposal that would have baffled the author known as a champion of the common man: Salinas may close all three of its public libraries.

Citing a $9-million citywide budget shortfall, officials announced the drastic move after two tax measures that would have saved the library system were defeated by voters in this struggling agricultural community of 150,000 residents.

The Salinas Valley, a swath of rich California farmland 100 miles south of San Francisco, was the setting for many of Steinbeck’s novels, which have been translated into more than 30 languages. Perhaps the most famous is “The Grapes of Wrath,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that tells the story of the Joad family, Depression-era migrant workers who move from Oklahoma to the Golden State, enduring many hardships in their search for jobs.

Both the disillusionment and the quest for the California Dream depicted in the book continue in Salinas. Most people in the now predominantly Latino area rent instead of own their homes, and many families exist below the national poverty level.

Now, if the city follows through on its plan to close its century-old library system -- with its $3-million budget -- by July, Salinas could become one of the largest cities nationwide without public library service, experts say.

Elizabeth Lopez says a town without a library is a town without a conscience. Without a library, she noted, Salinas residents could relish the works of their native son only by going to a bookstore or buying the books at the new National Steinbeck Center -- after paying the admission fee.

“A library like this is so critical to a community’s identity -- from young kids to retired people,” Lopez, an elementary-school teacher, said while peering inside a library that is now closed Mondays. “Every town should have its own library, but especially here in Steinbeck country. Where will the town’s next John Steinbeck go for his own literary education?”

Salinas officials say they have few options. They blame the budget crisis on plummeting sales tax revenue, soaring healthcare costs and the expense of state worker retirement plans. In 2002, the city cut 52 jobs and curtailed such services as paramedics and school crossing guards. Library hours were cut in half.

Knocking on doors to try to reach voters about the budget crisis, library supporters faced what turned out to be insurmountable challenges: One was that the tax measures did not specifically mention the library, only the city’s general fund.

Another was that many people did not take the issue seriously. Some said the city was crying wolf and would find a way to pay for the services. Other voters said the shortage was the result of fiscal mismanagement, and they refused to throw more good tax dollars after bad. Still others decided they were just too poor to approve any more taxes.

Across the country, budget cuts have jeopardized library services in Detroit, Denver, Lancaster, Pa., and Crawford County, Ohio -- some of the communities that have slashed hours and closed branches this year. In western New York state, Erie County officials may close all 52 public libraries unless the county resolves its funding crisis.

Other California communities have experimented with closing libraries as part of local budget cutting. After rural Lassen and Shasta counties closed library systems in the 1990s, officials worked for several years to restore the services.

“In some people’s mind, the easy option when faced with budget cuts is to close libraries, cut services and lay off staff -- an approach that is incredibly shortsighted,” said Michael Gorman, president-elect of the American Library Assn. and university librarian at Cal State Fresno.

“They don’t realize the tremendous impact on society in denying people access to the information they need. These closures particularly affect the poor, who often don’t have other access to books or computers.”

Nationwide, Americans each spend about $25 a year for local public library services -- about the cost of a newly published hardcover book -- and check out an average of six books a year. Since 2002, library-funding cuts have approached $100 million around the country, with more than 2,100 jobs eliminated and 31 libraries closed, according to the association.

State officials may visit Salinas to suggest alternative funding plans.

“I find it very sad that a city that’s the birthplace to one of America’s greatest writers can’t seem to sustain a library,” said California State Librarian Susan Hildreth. “But this town is truly in a terrible financial crisis.”

In the weeks before election day, Salinas officials slashed 20% of the city’s staff of about 300. Included were a dozen unfilled positions on the police force and money for all library services. The library system was the only city department flagged for complete dismantling. Still, two of the three tax measures that would have saved the libraries went down to defeat.

“It’s about time that people turned off reality TV and tuned into the reality around them,” said activist Lauren Cercone. “This is a sad day. Because once these libraries are gone, all the cupcake sales in the world aren’t going to bring them back.”

As he toured the downtown Steinbeck museum, Riverside resident Tom Archer said he made the five-hour drive just to steep himself in the atmosphere of the author who championed the underdog in such books as “Cannery Row” and “East of Eden.”

“Here’s a man who extolled the virtues of the common man,” the electrician said. “If he ever knew that years after his death the politicians would close off the poor to their opportunity to learn, he’d be absolutely disgusted with this town.”

But in life, Steinbeck’s relationship with the residents of the Salinas Valley -- who often appeared unflatteringly in his books -- was strained. After Steinbeck described the plight of migrant farmworkers in “The Grapes of Wrath,” growers charged that the author was “a traitor to his class,” said Herb Behrens, a volunteer archivist at the museum.

“They burned Steinbeck’s books,” he said. “There were threats on his life, and he was told that a warrant would be put out for his arrest if he ever set foot in the county.”

Dennis Donohue, a local vegetable grower who lobbied for the tax measures to save the libraries, says Salinas has tried to come to terms with its love-hate relationship with Steinbeck -- in part by opening the museum honoring his legacy in 1998.

“I always say that John Steinbeck used us in life and we’ve used him in death,” he said. “We’ve also used his spirit to look the community in the eye on this library issue and explain the gravity of our situation: Without libraries, one of the very essences of Salinas is in jeopardy.”

On Monday night, 45 residents met at City Hall to consider ways of salvaging the book-lending system, including another emergency tax measure.

Before the meeting, standing outside in the autumn chill, resident Jose Carlos Fajardo said he regularly visited the Steinbeck library to peruse the collection and admire the enlarged black-and-white photographs of the author -- including one showing him accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

“That library existed in his spirit,” he said. “I once saw an old Japanese lady there with a young Latino teenager. She was teaching him Japanese and he was instructing her in her Spanish.

“How can a city exist without its soul?”