The Salinas Valley sits between two mountain ranges at the crook of central California’s coastline, and it has always been a place of promise. John Steinbeck made it the promised land in his 1952 novel East of Eden, a story of fathers and sons and the American dream. Now Netflix has adapted the novel into a limited series starring Florence Pugh, released 1 October.
But the valley that inspired the dream is far from fulfilling it. A new Brookings Institution analysis finds that Salinas is the least affordable city in the US for the middle class, defined as the middle 60% of income earners. Nearly 60% of the middle class in the Salinas area — households making $38,000 to $193,000 — can’t afford basic necessities, double the national average. For Salinas’s Latino middle class, which make up 40% of all middle-class households, three-quarters struggle to afford everyday life.
Steinbeck’s Promise and the Valley’s Price
Steinbeck wrote of the farmland: “This will be a valley of great richness one day. And happy people will live here, thousands and thousands.” That promise has not been kept. The valley grows more than half of the nation’s supply of lettuce and nearly a third of its strawberries, and the people who pick them earn barely enough to feed their families.
Steinbeck himself came from the valley. He was born to a solidly middle-class family and grew up in a turreted, Victorian-style house near Salinas’s downtown. He worked alongside immigrant workers on nearby farms while dropping in and out of Stanford University. His vision was “very American” in its idealized version of social mobility, ascendancy and agency, said Gavin Jones, a Steinbeck scholar.
But the valley he knew was not the one his readers see today. New housing has grown at a snail’s pace, and a rent-stabilization policy has bitterly divided residents. The cost of living has risen faster than wages, and the middle class is caught between a rock and a hard place.
Gaye Freedman’s Struggle
Gaye Freedman, 75, and her husband moved to Salinas in 2017 to help their son raise a baby as a single dad. She makes about $75,000 total between part-time jobs and social security and pays $1,850 for a one-bedroom apartment. She is not rich, but she is also not poor — she falls squarely in the middle, and the middle is being squeezed.
Half of all renter households and about a quarter of homeowner households spend more than 30% of their income on housing, per US census data. In Salinas, the middle class spends far more. Andre Perry, a senior fellow at Brookings who oversaw the study, put it plainly. “Many towns like Salinas that served as havens for the middle class are now out of reach,” he said. “People go to Salinas as a reprieve from San Francisco and some of these high-priced cities, but in actuality, they’re finding it more difficult to live,” he added. The dream of a better life has become a trap.
The Numbers Behind the Trap
The numbers are stark. The middle class in Salinas is being crushed by costs that rise faster than income. Here is how the situation breaks down:
- Nearly 60% of the middle class in the Salinas area ($38,000 to $193,000) can’t afford basic necessities, double the national average
- Three-quarters of the Latino middle class (40% of all middle-class households) struggle to afford everyday life
- Half of all renter households spend more than 30% of their income on housing
- About a quarter of homeowner households spend more than 30% of their income on housing
- New housing growth has slowed to a crawl
- A rent-stabilization policy divides residents bitterly
The pattern is familiar to anyone who follows the economy. The wealthy are doing well, the poor are struggling, and the middle is disappearing. That is what economists call a K-shaped economy: the rich get richer while the poor slide down.
Salinas is a microcosm of that larger trend. The valley produces wealth, but it does not share it.
The Dream That Died
Steinbeck’s novel is a story of fathers and sons, and of the American dream. It is a heavy story, and it fits the place. The valley is beautiful, but it is also brutal. The people who live there know the difference between the two.
The Netflix adaptation brings the story to a new generation. Pugh plays the lead role, and the series arrives at a moment when the story feels urgent again. The characters are fictional, but the conditions they face are real.
The American dream remains elusive in the valley that inspired East of Eden. Steinbeck wrote about it, and the valley has not changed. The people who live there are poorer than ever.
“Many towns like Salinas that served as havens for the middle class are now out of reach.”
The dream is dead, but it does not have to stay that way. The valley can be fixed, but it will take action, and it will take courage.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs whatever lowers the cost of living and of starting and running a small business in the Salinas Valley and is against government funds that favor the biggest players or park public money where citizens have no say. The valley that once offered a reprieve from San Francisco now squeezes the middle class, and the numbers show it plainly: nearly 60% of the middle class cannot afford basic necessities, double the national average, while three-quarters of the Latino middle class struggle to afford everyday life. The paper wants the people who work the fields and pick the produce to keep what they earn, not lose it to rising rents and stagnant wages.
The solution is not to tear down the rent-stabilization policy that divides residents but to build more housing at a pace that matches the demand. The paper supports measures that lower the cost of living and starting and running a small business, not funds that favor the biggest players. The middle class carries the economy, and it gets the least say in it.
Readers should watch for the trap that turns the American dream into a trap. People move to Salinas as a reprieve from high-priced cities only to find it more difficult to live. The paper wants the dream back, but it will take action and courage to fix the valley that inspired East of Eden and left Steinbeck’s promise unfulfilled.
Source material: “The American dream remains elusive in the valley that inspired East of Eden,” The Guardian.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.