My grandparents lost their farms in the Depression, and so they did what they knew--farm work--but they had to go to where the work was, including the kids (my parents' generation). Fortunately, all that was over by the time I was born. But, sometimes, when it's very hot and I'm out toiling in the garden for pleasure and picking veggies, etc., I think how it must have been to do that for a living on someone else's land. They used to tell me how they had worked even harder on their own land, but it didn't seem as hard because it was theirs and not someone else's.
There are millions of stories like yours, and every one of them from a citizen, something too many seem to forget.
Blessedly, I was born at the end of the war, and after my parents...who also lost everything in the Depression as a fairly newly married couple...were back on their feet.
My father was heavy construction...another 'migrant' occupation; one much too often confused with "Okies", "Rednecks", and "Trailer Trash".