Topline:
Southern California's citrus industry left a lasting mark on the region, economically and culturally.
The backstory: SoCal's citrus boom lasted from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century and coincided with the rise of the railroad.
See it for yourself: For a taste of citrus history, check out California Citrus State Historic Park in Riverside.
For many decades, visitors to Southern California spoke in awe of the miles and miles of citrus trees that dominated the horizon. The orange — particularly the Washington Navel Orange — was the region’s calling card from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, driving economic growth, and becoming a key symbol of Californian prosperity.
Host Larry Mantle dove into this rich history on LAist’s daily news program, AirTalk, on 89.3 F.M.
Discovered in Brazil, the Washington Navel orange made its way to California via the Department of Agriculture.
“Because of the climate, because of the soil, because of the water in the Riverside area, it became this winter ripening marvel, with a glorious orange rind,” said Vince Moses, CEO of VinCate and Associates, a museum and preservation consulting firm, and previous director of the Museum of Riverside. “By the mid 1880s, it had begun to supplant Mediterranean sweet oranges in California.”
“The railroad and the citrus groves sort of grew up together in the 1880s and 1890s as the railroads, in particular the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads — two transcontinental systems — started to lay tracks to places like Los Angeles, Pasadena, and especially Riverside,” said Benjamin Jenkins, associate professor of history and archivist at the University of La Verne and author of Octopus's Garden: How Railroads and Citrus Transformed Southern California.
The invention of refrigerated cars in the late 1800s meant that people in New York and Boston could purchase oranges that were grown in California, Jenkins added. Packing houses and orange groves sprang up along the train tracks in cities like Claremont, Anaheim and Riverside, incentivized by the profits earned from shipping oranges and lemons east.
The industry was so lucrative that Riverside became “the wealthiest city per capita in the entire United States because it had become the home of the Washington Naval Orange,” Moses said.
Growers then banded together in 1893 to form the Southern California Fruit Exchange. It was “a cooperative incorporated to represent those growers and negotiate with the railroads and to create an organized manner in which they could pick, pack, and ship their fruit,” Moses said.
As it grew, the group became the California Fruit Growers Exchange, representing upward of 15,000 orange and lemon growers. The cooperative started branding their oranges “Sunkist” in 1909, which became the organization’s name in 1951. “They, in essence, branded the sun of Southern California,” Moses added.
Before the 20th century, packing was done by Native American, Chinese, and other East Asian immigrant groups, “but over the course of the 20th century, as immigration into California accelerated, particularly in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, starting about 1911, Mexicans and Mexican Americans really became the dominant picking and packing forces in Southern California,” Jenkins said.
Workers would move depending on the season, picking Washington Navels in the winter and Valencias in the spring.
“We can really date a lot of the downfall of the citrus industry to the early 1940s,” Jenkins explained.
Because of its position on the coast, Southern California was “an ideal place to build battleships [and] airplanes that would be used in the war against Japan.”
According to Jenkins, this shift meant the region needed new housing developments to accommodate all the people moving into the Southland to take part in the new defense industries. Citrus growers suddenly realized they were sitting on valuable real estate.
“A lot of orange growers decided to pull up stakes," Jenkins said. "They would maybe remove their orange trees to the Central Valley where they are still active today, and they would sell their land to housing developers to create tract homes.”
Though citrus is no longer commercially viable in Southern California “it also has this strange grasp on the public imagination because we're not willing to let go of the vestiges of those communities, whether that's in the form of packing houses, or public murals that you'll see in many towns in the San Gabriel Valley or in the Inland Empire showing what orange groves used to look like,” Jenkins said.
Those hoping to dig further into the history of citrus in Southern California can visit California Citrus State Historic Park, which has 200 acres of commercial navel orange trees, as well as tours and a visitor center built as a replica of a packing house.
"The park is just a hallmark of Southern California and that industry that made this region's identity for so very long,” Moses said.
Topline:
A long-running court battle between California veterans and the Trump administration will continue, as federal officials consider asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s order to build more housing for unhoused L.A. veterans.
What does the decision mean? A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to temporarily pause the order to construct more than 2,500 new housing units on the Veterans Affairs campus in West L.A.
Background: The years-long court battle was initiated in 2023 by veterans struggling with homelessness in L.A. The case has centered on the 400-acre V.A. campus, which U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has ruled should offer more housing to the approximately 2,250 veterans experiencing homelessness in L.A. County.
What’s next? VA officials now have until Dec. 10 to decide whether to appeal their fight to the Supreme Court. Judges with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told lawyers for the federal government that if they do not decide to appeal by Dec. 10, “the stay will be lifted immediately.”
Read on… to see what veteran advocates have to say about the latest development.
A long-running court battle between California veterans and the Trump administration will continue, as federal officials consider asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s order to build more housing for unhoused L.A. veterans.
A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to temporarily pause the order to construct more than 2,500 new housing units on the Veterans Affairs campus in West L.A.
Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel representing the plaintiffs, told LAist the delay could spell life or death for unhoused veterans, especially as the region braces for strong El Niño-driven storms.
“These are veterans who risked their lives and suffered both the visible and invisible wounds of war,” Rosenbaum said. “What the government is saying to them is, you're supposed to stay on the street."
VA officials did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.
Veterans' lawyers in a court filing called a possible appeal to the Supreme Court a “hopeless shot.”
“The government has lost every time they have taken this to court. No court has ruled for them on any of these matters,” Rosenbaum told LAist. “This is part of the administration’s war on its own veterans, and it’s time for that war to come to an end.”
The litigation was initiated in 2023 by L.A. veterans struggling with homelessness. The case has centered on the 400-acre V.A. campus, which U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has ruled should offer more housing to the approximately 2,250 veterans experiencing homelessness in L.A. County.
In 2024, Carter ordered officials to add thousands of temporary and permanent homes, and end leases with UCLA, a private K-12 school and an oil drilling company, which he said did not serve the needs of veterans.
An appeals court last month blocked the federal government’s efforts to halt the housing construction. But veteran advocates knew that federal officials could ask for further delays as the case winds through the courts.
VA officials now have until Dec. 10 to decide whether to appeal their fight to the Supreme Court. Judges with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told lawyers for the federal government that if they do not decide to appeal by Dec. 10, “the stay will be lifted immediately.”
Topline:
The Los Angeles Unified School District shortened the application window for specialized academic programs this year, and will no longer accept paper forms. Applications for the district’s magnet, dual-language and affiliated charter schools for the next academic year opened Oct. 1 and are due Nov. 6, 2026.
The backstory: If you want your child to attend their neighborhood school, enrollment is fairly straightforward; there’s a separate process for the district’s specialized programs called Choices.
Those include:
What's next: LAUSD also hosts fairs, organized by geographic region, where multiple schools table and share information about their programs, through mid-October. The on-time application deadline is Nov. 6, 2026, and the late application process starts Dec. 1.
Read on … to learn more about the Choices process and all the options available.
The Los Angeles Unified School District shortened the application window for specialized academic programs this year, and will no longer accept paper forms.
Applications for the district’s magnet, dual language and affiliated charter schools for the next academic year opened Oct. 1 and are due Nov. 6, 2026.
If you want your child to attend their neighborhood school, enrollment is fairly straightforward. There’s a separate process for the district’s specialized programs called Choices.
There are two windows to apply — on-time and late. The latter consists of all the spaces left after families who applied on time accept their offers.
Here’s the timeline for the 2027-28 school year:
LAUSD will no longer accept paper Choices applications. If families do not have a computer, they can use a smartphone to complete an application. LAUSD will also allow families to use computers at school parent centers.
Every child within LAUSD boundaries is assigned a school — find yours through the district’s “resident school identifier.”
But there are also hundreds of other programs available through the Choices process.
Those include:
No one type of school is inherently better than another, and no one metric defines a great school — there are many factors beyond test scores to consider, and we go over some of those here.
By far the most frequent piece of advice we’ve heard is to go on an in-person school tour if possible.
“The very best thing that people can do is go to the school and try to watch the way that educators interact with students, the way that students interact with each other, and the way that families are included or not in the life of a school,” said Jack Schneider, a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, education researcher and parent. “Once you do that, you really get a sense of what kind of place kids are going to school.”
Some schools post tour information online, but you may need to call for details.
LAUSD also hosts fairs, organized by geographic region, where multiple schools table and share information about their programs, through mid-October.
Topline:
The Justice Department found Thursday that the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered race in admissions.
DOJ findings: The Justice Department’s investigation found UCLA’s law school discriminated against white and Asian American students by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants in its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes. Its analysis found the mean LSAT score was lower for admitted Black applicants than for admitted white applicants.
The backstory: Affirmative action in college admissions has been illegal since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling forbade it. The same ruling said colleges could continue to assess how applicants’ backgrounds might speak to broader characteristics, but President Donald Trump has accused colleges of using applicants’ personal statements and other proxies to consider race in admissions — which conservatives view as illegal discrimination.
The Justice Department found Thursday that the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered race in admissions.
The announcement follows a similar finding against the university’s medical school and comes as President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up scrutiny of colleges’ processes for selecting students. The administration also has accused the UC Berkeley Law School and the medical school at the University of California, San Diego, of illegally discriminating against white and Asian applicants.
The UCLA School of Law said in a statement that it was committed to making admissions decisions in compliance with all applicable laws.
“Students are admitted through a comprehensive, merit-based review process that considers each applicant’s achievements and experiences,” the statement said. “We are confident in our process.”
Affirmative action in college admissions has been illegal since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling forbade it. The same ruling said colleges could continue to assess how applicants’ backgrounds might speak to broader characteristics, but Trump has accused colleges of using applicants’ personal statements and other proxies to consider race in admissions — which conservatives view as illegal discrimination.
The Justice Department’s investigation found UCLA’s law school discriminated against white and Asian American students by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants in its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes. Its analysis found the mean LSAT score was lower for admitted Black applicants than for admitted white applicants.
The department also said admissions staff at the law school instructed applicants during recruitment efforts, including one called the “Diversity Admissions Open House,” how to reveal their race in essays.
“Like many of its peer institutions, UCLA Law School runs a two-tiered admissions system whose academic bar for acceptance shifts up or down depending on the color of your skin,” said Harmeet Dhillon, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, in a news release.
California voters ended affirmative action in college admissions in a 1997 ballot measure. In a brief filed in the Supreme Court case, the UC system said the change led to a precipitous drop in underrepresented minorities, especially at the system’s most selective campuses. The brief said UC went on to implement a range of race-neutral measures to increase diversity.
The Trump administration also has sued over the main UCLA campus’s response to allegations of antisemitic harassment. The administration’s latest finding sets the stage for a voluntary resolution to bring UCLA into compliance with the Justice Department’s legal interpretation or, if none can be reached, potential legal action.
___
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Topline:
Local artist Hedy Torres drew unfinished portraits of DACA recipients in 2017, while she was a student at Cal State Northridge, and pledged to finish them when her subjects attained lawful permanent residency. Last month, she reunited with her first subject and invited community members to watch as she asked him how his life has changed over nearly a decade.
The backstory: Lino de Jesús Pérez Cuevas was brought to the U.S. when he was 2. He is now a parent and an adjunct instructor at Cal State Northridge, but there was a time when he could not envision a stable future.
Why it matters: DACA does not grant lawful permanent status or a pathway to citizenship. Although the federal government continues to process renewal requests for existing DACA recipients, the agency is no longer approving first-time applications. Under the second Trump administration, DACA recipients are also experiencing significant delays with renewals. Some have lost their jobs. Recipients have also been deported.
Go deeper: Podcast explores a DACA recipient's journey back to Mexico after 30 years
Artist Hedy Torres asked a 20-something student from Cal State Northridge to sit for a portrait nearly a decade ago. Using charcoal on paper, she drew the dark-haired young man in black and white — but she deliberately kept the portrait unfinished.
The idea was that she would complete the piece if her subject, a DACA recipient named Lino de Jesús Pérez Cuevas, ever attained lawful permanent residency.
And now he has.
DACA, which stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is a program that provides two-year work permits and deportation relief for people who were brought to the U.S. as children. The permits can be renewed, but the program does not grant a pathway to citizenship.
In late September, Pérez Cuevas — who is now married, a father, a green card holder and an adjunct instructor at his alma mater — sat with Torres once again.
Torres’ project involves interviewing subjects as she sketches them. This year, she invited the public to watch her complete the portrait as she spoke to Pérez Cuevas about what it took for him to get a green card and what that means for his life.
About two dozen people gathered at a community center in West Hollywood’s Plummer Park to see her add details to the piece that speak to the passing of time.
“I just wanted to make people empathetic to what [immigrants] go through during this process,” she said. “You have to be very patient. There is a lot of uncertainty.”
Pérez Cuevas, who was born in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, was brought to the U.S. by his parents when he was 2.
When Torres drew him in 2017, he was pursuing a master’s degree in kinesiology at Cal State Northridge. That year, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced intentions to rescind DACA, which had enabled him to set goals without the fear of being deported. A 2020 Supreme Court decision allowed the program to continue.
Torres was once undocumented herself, so she understood the 2017 announcement was earth-shattering for the approximately 800,000 people who were then in the program, she said.
That year, Torres was also a student at CSUN, working toward a master’s in fine art.
She recalled recently that she wanted people to see DACA recipients as people, not numbers. And so, for her master's project, she proposed creating portraits of DACA beneficiaries.
The portraits would be rooted in interviews conducted as she drew her subjects. Leaving them unfinished, she said, would symbolize the precarity of the moment.
The pieces would have enough detail for viewers to see the subjects’ faces clearly, particularly their eyes and expressions. Other elements, including their bodies and clothing, would be more of an initial sketch.
The university greenlit her project and gave her a grant to pursue it. There was just one problem: Torres had to convince reticent DACA recipients to share their stories.
When Torres first messaged Pérez Cuevas about the project, he ignored her for two weeks, he said. But because they had a mutual friend, he eventually agreed to meet with her.
“I was trying to see whether this person was just an academic trying to complete a project for her own benefit, or whether she really cared about the community,” he told LAist.
They met at a coffee shop. Pérez Cuevas learned about the artist’s journey from the Mexican state of Colima and everything she’d lived through since.
Before 2015, for example, an undocumented person in California could not get a driver’s license. When she was undocumented, Torres was stopped by police and had her car impounded. She said she had to cobble together thousands of dollars to get her car back from a tow yard.
Pérez Cuevas could relate. He had experienced the same thing.
He decided to trust her.
After she drew him, Pérez Cuevas helped Torres connect with more DACA recipients at the university. She drew four other portraits, which were also left unfinished.
These works were acquired by the university, with the agreement that Torres would be able to borrow and complete them when — and if — her subjects attained lawful permanent residency.
As she worked on the portrait, Torres added soft lines rendered in charcoal to the image of Pérez Cuevas’ face, along with a robust mustache. And she continued the interview.
“What did you imagine your life would be like when you were young?” Torres asked.
Thinking back to high school, Pérez Cuevas said he realized then that not having a social security number barred him from decent-paying work.
“I didn't really understand what I was doing with my life,” he said, adding that he used to not think higher education was for him even while he was at CSUN. “My state of mind was really dark back then.”
He credited a college counselor with helping him navigate school. He earned his degree in 2017.
Pérez Cuevas said he has intimate knowledge of what it’s like to live with constant uncertainty: not knowing how he would pay for college because he did not qualify for federal financial aid; not being able to travel outside the country; and waiting anxiously for federal officials to make decisions on immigration laws that could transform his life.
“I can't stress enough how difficult it is psychologically to wait because it's something that can revolutionize your life,” he said. “You're betting your whole life on this approval and just that suspense of waiting, waiting, waiting, living with that anxiety.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services continues to process renewal requests for existing DACA recipients, but the agency is no longer approving first-time applications.
Under the second Trump administration, DACA recipients are also experiencing significant delays with renewals. Some have lost their jobs. Recipients have been deported. According to the agency, the median processing time for DACA renewals was one month in 2023. Currently, it’s taking seven months to process most cases.
Pérez Cuevas said he was able to adjust his immigration status after marrying a U.S. citizen and consulting with an attorney. His lawyer helped him secure a document that allowed noncitizens to travel abroad and seek legal re-entry.
“Did getting permanent residency give you a sense of freedom, a freedom you probably didn't have when you were under DACA?” Torres asked him.
“Absolutely,” Pérez Cuevas said. “The biggest freedom was psychological freedom. You have this weight that you've been carrying all these years that finally just gets thrown off your shoulders.”
One of the things he feared most was long-term separation from his parents, he said.
When his mother and father migrated to the U.S., they did not see their own parents — his grandparents — for 40 years, Pérez Cuevas added. After his parents moved back to Mexico during the pandemic, he feared they would also go decades without seeing each other.
But having a green card enables him to travel and see his family.
Pérez Cuevas told Torres that, paradoxically, the threat of losing DACA made him “weirdly ambitious."
He said he doubled down on his studies and took on every internship he could. He figured that if the U.S. decided to deport him, he’d still have his education and work experience.
“Even on the days where I didn't necessarily have the greatest energy or the greatest state of mind, I showed up for myself,” Pérez Cuevas said.
