This project was funded by an Exploring Rhizomes Fellowship and hosted by the Relevancy & History Program.
A Growing Business
Between the 1890s and the 1920s, the citrus industry was growing in Southern California. There was a second “gold rush” in which many white settlers from the East Coast bought land for growing oranges. Growing oranges was a successful business and many growers made lots of money selling their products, oranges. As with many products, orange sellers worked to advertise their products to people to buy.
Creating an Image of Oranges
To sell oranges, growers and businessmen wanted people to have an ideal view of oranges and of California. They created orange crate labels which were square advertisements placed on orange crates. Often these labels used similar images, metaphors, and ideas.
What images of orange groves were shown to people who bought oranges?
Popular advertising images showed California as a peaceful and fruitful place and orange growing as peaceful and beautiful. Advertisements showed purple snow-capped mountains, rivers, or other sources of water, and large valleys covered with citrus trees. In many examples, citrus groves are shown from above providing what is called an aerial view, or a view from the air. Look carefully at these images. What is missing?
Many of the pictures of orange groves focus on the bright orange fruit. Postcards and crate labels show oranges on healthy trees in neat straight rows. Have you found what is missing?
In this postcard you can see the groves and a large train.
Where are the People?
Here is what was missing from the other images…
People!
Especially the people who worked in the orange groves. In order for oranges to be sold, they needed to be grown, cared for, picked, washed, packed, and shipped to the people who would buy them in the store. The people who owned the land often were not the same people who worked in the groves. It was Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, Filipino, and Sikh people who cared for the oranges. The people who did this work, the workers or laborers, were important to the citrus business but they were not often shown in advertising materials like crate labels or postcards. By not showing the workers and the hard work they did, their labor (work) was hidden from view. As we saw with the first postcard of the train, they were erased from the image and removed from the picture.
Portraits in the Groves
While many advertisements focused on empty citrus groves, there were some images that did feature people. However, these people were usually the people who owned the groves or tourists. The people who actually worked in the groves were not shown. How are the people posed in the images below.
Segregation
Many of the Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, Filipino, and Sikh workers were not treated fairly.
Because of their race, religion, or because they were immigrants they were not paid fairly, were asked to do dangerous and tiring work, and were segregated, or separated from other white people.
In the 1910s, Mexican workers became the largest group of citrus workers. They were separated into segregated neighborhoods, but they built strong communities.
Taking photographs and especially portraits became an important way to claim that they belonged. Many Mexican families took portraits of themselves in their neighborhoods and in the groves.
Why Are Portraits Important?
A portrait is a picture of a person. This picture can be a photograph, painting, or drawing. We see portraits all around us, you may have a portrait of yourself. Taking a portrait photograph can be something that is done for fun, to create a memory, or to celebrate an event but it can also be an important statement. People often take pictures of themselves next to things they own like a new car, or even by places they feel they belong in like in front of a home. By taking portraits people record or mark their presence in the world.
Explore More Portraits
The Mexican American Art Since 1848 portal brings together images and art related to Mexican American art, culture, and history from many different libraries, archives, and museums into a single searchable website. Visit the portal to discover a diversity of Mexican American art and visual culture.
Putting Themselves in the Picture
While laborers (workers) were not shown in advertisements, they used portrait photography to place themselves in the groves. While other images erased workers from the picture, by taking photographs of themselves and their families in the groves that they worked in they made a statement about their presence in citrus. Click on the images to learn more about them.
Activity
What is a place that is important to you?
Do you have a picture of you by it? If you do can you describe that picture and what it shows?
If you do not: imagine what it would be like to take a picture in that important place? What is that place like? How would you pose?
Credits:
Mexican American Art Since 1848, Los Angeles Public Library, Riverside Metropolitan Museum, Loma Linda Area Parks and Historical Society