More than a century ago, oranges became a symbol of the California Dream. With its vast orange groves and towering palm trees, California Citrus State Historic Park in Riverside is the perfect setting for strolling, picnicking or lounging amid citrus and palm trees while learning about a fruit that shaped California’s history and identity. The park drives home “how connected everything is,” says State Park Interpreter I Adam Brodner, including California’s climate conditions and water needs, innovations in technology and advertising, and the contributions of immigrant workers whose labor and skills transformed a golden fruit into a symbol for the Golden State.

The park’s visitor center was built as a replica of an early 20th-century packinghouse and is designed as a living history museum. The adjacent Varietal Grove features more than 70 species of citrus, including oranges, lemon, lime and kumquat, one of the five ancestors of today’s citrus varieties. Unlike most of its cousins in the citrus family, the egg-shaped kumquat is eaten unpeeled. The first taste impression is the soft, tart pulp, but chewing longer releases the sugar from the skin, turning the flavor from sour to sweet. This explains why Brodner calls kumquat the “Don’t Give Up Fruit.” Most people did give up on the kumquat, though, and made oranges, which require less patience to enjoy, California’s — and the world’s — favorite snack fruit.

Like all citrus fruit, oranges are not native to California but were first cultivated in Asia and traded on the Silk Road thousands of years ago. Spanish missionaries planted the first orange grove at Mission San Gabriel, east of today’s Los Angeles. The fruit thrived in the Mediterranean climate conditions of coastal Southern California, and in the second half of the 19th century, Chinese immigrants introduced methods of irrigation, clipping and packing that aided the mass distribution of citrus.

“The story couldn’t be more appropriate” to the park, says Brodner, “because oranges and (most species of) palm trees are immigrants, too.”

A turning point in the history of California citrus came in 1873, when Eliza Tibbets planted two trees of a new variety of oranges, originally from Bahia, Brazil, in Riverside. The new variety, named “Washington Navel,” made for the perfect orange. It was sweet, had no seeds and could be harvested in winter — establishing an enduring connotation with Christmas season. With improved irrigation through the Gage Canal, citrus groves expanded deeper into to the dry Riverside and San Bernadino counties.

“The arrival of the navel orange and water triggered the second Gold Rush in California,” says State Park Interpreter I Jose Cabello. And when the new network of transcontinental railroads combined with the development of refrigerated railcars, the stage was set for California oranges to conquer the world: “At the height of the citrus industry,” says Brodner, “California exported over a billion oranges.” Colorful and imaginative citrus box labels perpetuated the image of California as a land of sunshine, plenty and romance.

When restrictive immigration quotas and other discriminatory measures reduced the number of Asian agricultural workers, white women and Mexican men filled the void in the citrus groves and packinghouses. During and after World War II, Mexicans constituted more than 80% percent of the citrus workforce. Many came under the Bracero program, the guest worker agreement between the U.S. government and Mexico that allow single men to work in California’s agriculture, as long as they didn’t bring their families.

The Relevancy and History Project, a cooperation between State Parks and the University of California, Riverside, is a community-engaged and inclusive effort to research and document the testimonies of citrus laborers, whose experiences often stood in stark contrast to the idealized California depicted on the packing crates they filled. The project is a way “to bring park history to [inland Southern California] communities,” says Project Director Dr. Cathy Gudis. It highlights “how citrus is embedded in a larger dynamic of economy, race and culture, and how these histories are represented.”

Being separated from their families led to a sense of isolation and emotional hardship. Braceros like Luis Barozio Ceja from Michoacán, Mexico, described how an initially warm welcome amid the wartime U.S. labor shortage turned quickly into rejection. Being paid lower wages than average white workers opened Mexican farm workers up to exploitation; at the same time, they were seen as a threat by American labor organizations even though most American workers avoided the strenuous job of picking fruit from the thorny citrus trees. And while career opportunities for white women expanded in the postwar period, for Latina women like Ines Florez, the packinghouse was typically one of only few options.

While the park’s Sunkist center, gazebo and rose garden are popular venues for weddings and other celebrations year-round, the nonprofit Friends of California Citrus Park holds a large Citrus Festival each spring that features citrus tasting, food trucks and a beer garden, vendors, and live performers. And in addition to its collection of historic photos and testimonies, the park exhibits some of the photos by artist Kate Alexandrite, capturing the reactions of the brave visitors tasting citrus — including the sourest varieties.

Today, the Coachella Valley and Inland Empire are the “last outposts” of California’s formerly sprawling citrus industry. In the second half of the 20th century, freeways and suburban homes paved over most of the once-ubiquitous citrus groves in Southern California. California Citrus State Historic Park preserves not only a small slice of what once dominated the Southern California landscape, it also takes visitors back to a time when the California Dream, evoking images of sun, palm trees and promise — could be found in a crate of oranges.