Orange County and the Mexican Revolution

Rebels with a homemade cannon in Juárez, Mexico, 1911.

Long a colony of Spain, California became part of the new nation of Mexico in 1821. Most of the Californios – the families who had lived in California under Spain – continued to operate their ranches and to identify themselves culturally as Spaniards. Naturally, there was some movement of population between “Old Mexico” and Alta California. But it wasn’t until the early decades of the 20th Century (over 60 years after California joined the United States) that large waves of native Mexicans came to the region. They were fleeing the Mexican Revolution and were drawn by a booming economy. These immigrants – and those who followed – provided much of the region’s all-important agricultural labor force and, as they put down roots and sought new opportunities, became an even more integral part of California.

The Mexican Revolution – to overthrow President Porfirio Diaz’s iron-fisted regime – began in 1910 and continued for a decade. The violence, turmoil, and economy led many Mexicans to flee their homeland. Even long after the war, countless Mexicans would continue to see the U.S. as a place to build a better future for themselves and their families.    

Even as the revolution raged, Orange County’s labor-hungry citrus industry was growing by leaps and bounds. A tremendous amount of fruit needed to be harvested and packed in a very narrow window of time each year. There was no way for the growers to do the job themselves. In the past, Chinese and Japanese immigrants had done a good share of the agricultural work, but federal legislation had stopped immigration from those countries. The citrus industry needed to hire on a large scale. 

Orange pickers on the Hewes Ranch, in Orange.

“Labor agents, taking advantage of the social disruptions caused by the Mexican Revolution and aided by federal agencies, extensively recruited Mexican labor and transported them throughout the Southwest,” writes UCI historian Gilbert Gonzales. “Between 1910 and 1930 three quarters of a million Mexicans flooded the labor market and provided a seemingly inexhaustible labor supply.”

Orange County’s Mexican-born population soared “from 1,300 in 1910 to 3,700 by 1920, and had jumped to over 16,500 by 1930, or about fourteen percent of the local population,” historian Phil Brigandi told the Register in 2010. “In 1928, the La Habra Star estimated there were 40,000 Mexican Americans living in twenty-seven different communities here [in Orange County], plus another 10,000 or so migrant workers following the harvests.”

“Citrus camps,” with housing for these workers and their families, were sometimes established by fruit growers’ associations. A handful of colonias, where Latinos could purchase homes without concern about race restrictions, were established by developers in rural areas. Mexican neighborhoods or barrios in cities often evolved organically near factories, packing houses, or other places of employment. Most of these communities appeared between 1910 and 1930, and many remain today, woven into the larger fabric of suburban Orange County. The residents worked hard, formed professional and social organizations, kept old traditions alive, and learned or created new traditions too. Churches and schools helped with social services. 

The tract map for Colonia La Paz, filed in 1924.

Among the colonias developed in Orange County during the mid-1920s were Juarez, just south of Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley; Independencia, on Katella Ave. between Anaheim and Stanton; La Paz in Garden Grove; La Jolla in Placentia; La Paloma, along S. Hewes Ave. in Orange; and Manzanillo on Santa Ana’s west side.

Directly referencing the Mexican Revolution, the street names in Colonia Juarez are Calle Independencia, Circulo de Juarez, Avenida Cinco de Mayo, Circulo de Zapata, Calle Madero, and Circulo de Villa.

A later photo (1956) of Colonia Independencia, along Katella Ave.

Local citrus pickers camps included Little Tijuana, between Fullerton and La Habra; Campo Colorado and Campo Corona, near the La Habra Citrus Association plant; and Campo Pomona, which housed employees of the Placentia Orange Growers Association. 

Still more neighborhoods grew up near the packing houses on Cypress Street in Orange, and near the sugar factories in South Santa Ana (Delhi) and Anaheim (La Fabrica). And some barrios, like Santa Ana’s Logan, predated the Revolution, but grew larger during those turbulent years. 

The tremendous growth of local Mexican-American communities around the time of the Revolution did much to shape Orange County’s economy, culture, landscape, cuisine, language and identity. It was also the first generation of Mexican Americans who would make significant progress in fighting for equal opportunity and against racial discrimination. Moreover, these individuals and families set the stage for future waves of Mexican immigrants who would further change the face of America.

Immigrants Maria, Apolinar and Dolores Estrada and Victoria Marquez are photographed in Anaheim, circa 1918.