Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don’t need much. They wouldn’t know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny, report them.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. Steinbeck puts class discrimination on trial in this chapter of the novel. He speaks of how modern industrialized farming has copied the methods of the ancient Romans, and built empires on the backs of slaves. Foreign workers are dehumanized by the big landowners – "look how they live." This is so that they can justify paying them slave wages.