This is the difference between today's Mexicans and yesterday's Okies, between the Joads and the Vegas (although Tom Joad was also on the run from the law).
The Okies worked on farms in the Central Valley, then became arch-conservative, red-state farmers themselves in a state that has otherwise gone Democratic blue in recent years.
Recall, however, that the Okies poor as they may have been provided a gigantic pool of labor that fueled California's postwar boom and helped transform the Golden State into the world's eighth-largest economy.