How does Steinbeck's detached point of view in "The Harvest Gypsies: Article II" help you understand the plight of migrant farm workers living in California during the Great Depression?

Steinbeck, in quite a matter-of-fact way, describes the circumstances of three families in one typical migrant workers' camp in California. His presentation of the facts pertaining to their lives is detached and unemotional, despite the incredible tragedies they have endured, because such a tone draws attention to the way these individuals have been treated by society. In the final paragraphs of the article, Steinbeck describes the social workers who have come and gone from the camp. Of the families, he says,

They are filed and open for inspection. These families have been questioned over and over about their origins, number of children living and dead. The information is taken down and filed. That is that. It has been done so often and so little has come of it.

Even the people whose job it is to help the workers and their families are impotent, possibly because they cannot really do anything of value to help these families or because the need is just too great. All they can do is take down information, keeping track of who is where, because there is little other assistance they can offer. Thus, the people are all but forgotten by the rest of the country, people who still have jobs and homes, because we have a tendency to look out for ourselves and ignore the suffering of others, especially if we cannot see it. Others might "hear much about the free clinics for the poor, [though] these people do not know how to get the aid and they do not get it." Steinbeck's tone emphasizes the detachment with which the rest of America views the migrants, if they are even thought of at all.
Further, this narrative detachment, when juxtaposed with the unimaginable details of these families' lives, renders their plight all the more horrible by contrast. In Steinbeck's description of the first family, he says, without emotion, "The spirit of this family is not quite broken." It's as though the breaking of spirits is so common in these camps that the mention of it does not even warrant emotion. Were one to become emotional every time a spirit is broken, one would not cease to emote. The detached voice reminds us that, although the lives of these families may strike us as exceptional and out of the ordinary, they are anything but for these migrant families who routinely lose their dignity, their children, and even their will to live.