I am continuously surprised when people who are not from Southern California (or I suppose California in general) marvel at how many palm trees there are here. It's not something I ever really thought about growing up. I mean, I was aware of the exotic tree and enjoyed how it added a bit of character to the place, but I never thought about how amazing they were. To me they were just palm trees.
Now 24 years old and once again living in Los Angeles, post grad, I am consistently reminded by outsiders of our fair palm. From what I remember in 4th grade California history, palm trees, the kind that line boulevards and avenues from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills, and Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley, are not really native to the Los Angeles area. Actually I think they are from Hawaii, Spain or Africa. They were brought here in the ancient times of the 1920s and 1930s through the 1950s to excoticize and romanticize and inevitably to market Southern California, during various boom periods from Hollywood cinema to Post-World War II suburbanization.
I was struck when a friend visiting from the Bay Area marveled at how many palm trees there where in Los Angeles. I believe his exact words were, "sooo many palm trees!" I thought oh yeah I guess there are. A work colleague who is from a land where it snows said something similar.
I never really cared for palm trees as a species of plant. I mean I didn't think they served any purpose other than to look pretty. However when I was quite young, I liked to imagine we were in ancient Egypt. I really loved ancient Egypt you see, the culture and people fascinated me. Hieroglyphics often showed ancient Egyptians along the Nile river doing normal things like farming, with cows, and there were always these thick Palm Trees that fanned out at the top. Some of their columns were carved to look like palm trees. I thus made the connection that I could pretend the San Gabriel Valley was an "ancient Egypt" like environment, instead of what it really was, a big suburb with lots of hills and rows of houses and stupid kids.
Palm trees, an odd thing, displaced from it's native land is much like a lot of the people who live in Los Angeles today. It's part of the whole matrix that makes up this colorful place, but at the same time is kind of an odd outsider. Those of us on the inside just look and make up stories about those trees, those people from places even more exotic like, "New Jersey" or "Ohio" or "District of Columbia!"
Now 24 years old and once again living in Los Angeles, post grad, I am consistently reminded by outsiders of our fair palm. From what I remember in 4th grade California history, palm trees, the kind that line boulevards and avenues from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills, and Long Beach to the San Fernando Valley, are not really native to the Los Angeles area. Actually I think they are from Hawaii, Spain or Africa. They were brought here in the ancient times of the 1920s and 1930s through the 1950s to excoticize and romanticize and inevitably to market Southern California, during various boom periods from Hollywood cinema to Post-World War II suburbanization.
I was struck when a friend visiting from the Bay Area marveled at how many palm trees there where in Los Angeles. I believe his exact words were, "sooo many palm trees!" I thought oh yeah I guess there are. A work colleague who is from a land where it snows said something similar.
I never really cared for palm trees as a species of plant. I mean I didn't think they served any purpose other than to look pretty. However when I was quite young, I liked to imagine we were in ancient Egypt. I really loved ancient Egypt you see, the culture and people fascinated me. Hieroglyphics often showed ancient Egyptians along the Nile river doing normal things like farming, with cows, and there were always these thick Palm Trees that fanned out at the top. Some of their columns were carved to look like palm trees. I thus made the connection that I could pretend the San Gabriel Valley was an "ancient Egypt" like environment, instead of what it really was, a big suburb with lots of hills and rows of houses and stupid kids.
Palm trees, an odd thing, displaced from it's native land is much like a lot of the people who live in Los Angeles today. It's part of the whole matrix that makes up this colorful place, but at the same time is kind of an odd outsider. Those of us on the inside just look and make up stories about those trees, those people from places even more exotic like, "New Jersey" or "Ohio" or "District of Columbia!"
