Every December in Southern California, the days get shorter yet brighter - and it's not Christmas lights or the shifting sun that make the region shine. I'm talking about citrus. Trees heavy with fruits that ripen through the color spectrum as winter progresses are as much a Southern California holiday tradition as tamales and the Rose Parade.
Seeing these bounties during the season of giving is especially poignant for me. My maternal grandfather was a teenage naranjero - an orange picker - during the 1920s in Anaheim, when custom and law required that Mexicans like him live on the poor side of town and attend segregated schools, even as the local economy depended on their labor.
Today, in my small Santa Ana home, I tend to 11 citrus trees - some in the ground, some in pots. Citrus has turned from a symbol of exploitation for my grandfathers to a source of nutrition for my parents to a sign of the good life for me.
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