Black on the outside, green on the inside, sometimes sweet, sometimes savory, but great every time: avocados. Great with famous combinations such as chips and guacamole, avocado toasts, or even in burgers. While many people enjoy eating avocados, the history behind its rising popularity is interesting to know for whoever has eaten one. As avocados become more popular and even more expensive in some states, knowing the origin of where they came from and how it got its name will make you think about avocados even more. Along with the history, there is also a slight political and financial side to avocados as people who grow them are mostly low-paid Latinx farmers, yet, some people have more access than others.
Let me take you back all the way to 5,000 and 7,000 B.C. The avocado originated during this time in South-Central Mexico and Central America but some archeologists have shared that some avocado seeds were found to be all the way from 750 B.C. (California Avocados). in Peru. With avocados being present in Mexico, most of the population in this area were Aztecs in which they named the avocado “ahuacatl,” which literally means “testicle.” According to Marissa Laliberte from Reader’s Digest, “…Avocados were called the Nahuatl word ahuacatl—which also happened to mean “testicles.” Some think that they called this from the way avocados looked like and how they grew in pairs from trees. Spanish conquistadors arrived during the 16th century, sometime after avocados had begun to be cultivated. Sadly, Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes and his Europeans destroyed most of the Aztec’s territory, but also encountered the beautiful and tasty avocado. While in Mexico with the avocado on their hands, Spanish conquistadors had trouble pronouncing the word. According to California Avocados’ article it, “Spanish Conquistadors loved the fruit but couldn’t pronounce it and changed the Aztec word…” Eventually, the word was now “aguacate,” which turned into avocado in English as we all know it.
Biggest Avocados Producers and How It’s Grown
To start off, avocados grow on trees that are usually 30ft but can be up to 60ft according to the Purdue article. As the avocado grows, the fruit’s shape slowly turns into a pear-shape fruit, “often more or less necked, oval, or nearly round,” and could be between 3 to 13 inches long and up to 6 inches wide (Purdue). The color varies as it grows, sometimes the avocado can have a “yellow-green, deep-green or very dark-green” color. Once the avocado has ripened, the color is a purple-black color with a variety of a rough and smooth surface on the outside. Besides the yellow-green flesh on the inside that makes the fruit tasty, there is a round medium-sized seed that you cannot eat and must take out (you will choke if you eat it). Now, who are the biggest producers of the avocado you might ask? Well, after avocados became more universal, the biggest producers are Mexico and some countries in Central America like Peru and Dominican Republic. According to Agriculture Research expert M. Shahbandeh, “Mexico harvested some 2.3 billion tons of avocados in 2019, making that country the top producer of avocados worldwide.” While Mexico is the biggest producer of avocados, the development of avocados has spread all over the world; the U.S. biggest states that produce avocados are California, Florida, and Hawaii. However, before avocados could even be grown in multiple states in America, the U.S. had to lift a 83-year old ban in the 1990’s on the importation of Mexican avocados into several states in the U.S. This allowed Mexico to import their avocados to many states in the U.S. “After two years of emotional debate, the department ruled that Hass avocados from the Mexican region of Michoacan that meet U.S. import requirements could be shipped into 19 states in the Northeast and Midwest ” (Groves and Sheridan, LA Times). Now that avocados are imported to many states, the consumption has been increasing every year with 2.45 billion avocados being consumed in 2018.
Who Grows These Wonderful Avocados?
In the U.S., racial injustice is shown through the agricultural world, as it was found that white Americans are most likely to own land and benefit from the wealth it generates. According to Megan Horst from Eater, she says “From 2012 to 2014, white people comprised over 97 percent of non-farming landowners, 96 percent of owner-operators, and 86 percent of tenant operators.” They also get most of the income from any farm-related money. Meanwhile, most farmers of color only had 3 percent of non-farming landowners and less than 4 percent of owner operators. In fact, they are more likely to be tenants than owners. How did these statistics come to reality? Well, there is some history that can explain why and one of them relates to the Civil War. After the Civil War, “…Descendants accumulated 19 million acres of land,” where 14 percent of all farm owner-operators were Black or African Americans (Horst). Though, by 2012, that number dropped to 1.5 percent. A reason for this drop is because freed slaves were not given reparations which prevented them from owning huge lands. That drop can also be explained through the fact that Native Americans were violently removed from their own land. For example, “…Not only were Native Americans often violently removed from their homelands (which were further segmented by federal laws), but a series of federal Homestead Acts gave mainly white male settlers and corporations hugely subsidized land” (Horst). Laws like the California Alien Land Law of 1913 prohibited a lot of people of color from owning land. This racist system is the main reason why there are more white owners than people of color which is an ongoing problem in the U.S. today.
The ugly side of it though is that most of the farm laborers in the U.S. are mostly Latinx/Mexican migrants. According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, “The majority (72%) of all farmworkers were foreign born,” with 68 percent being born in Mexico. Crazy right? Well, what’s crazier is how much these farm laborers get paid. For example, according to the NCFH, the average annual pay for a farmer’s family comes out to be between $17,500 – $19,999. Let that sink in. This has been a problem in the U.S. mainly because even till today, these farm laborers pick not only fruit, but also vegetables, nuts, and the list goes on. Therefore, as agriculture is important for everyone since we all eat food that is mostly picked from farmers, we should all think (and thank those workers) about the racial injustice and unfair pay that most farmers of color still go through.
Who Has Access To Avocados?
You might think that everyone has access to avocados because I mean, they are sold in literally any grocery store you have gone to, but in reality, it is a little more complicated than it seems. This is mainly because of the rise of the price for avocados. According to Andy Ash from Business Insider, he says, “Avocado prices have rocketed in recent years by up to 129%, with the average national price of a single Hass avocado reaching $2.10 in 2019…” This price was doubled in just one year. To keep it simple, the main reason why avocados have grown in price is mainly because of its health benefits. Back then, people found out that avocados had fat in them which made people avoid them. However, people later found out that the fat in the avocados is actually monounsaturated fat which is a good fat for us. With this, avocados started to appear in restaurants across the U.S., and ultimately started to appear in a lot of people’s plates at home. But, this doesn’t take away the fact of who has access to it. Due to its rising price, the ones who have more access to avocados are really those who can afford it. If you put it in logistical terms, maybe those farmers who pick the avocados, don’t have as much access than those who have the wealth for it. Mind blowing isn’t it? Who would have thought that people who pick these fruits might fall short some cents from buying it? Instead, people with wealth buy avocados without thinking where it came from. While avocados might seem a regular tasty fruit, there is no doubt that the popularity and the price will go up, making it less accessible to those who aren’t able to afford fruits like avocados.
How Do Avocados Impact Our Identity?
Throughout my life, I have witnessed some things that make me question whether people are aware of where certain things come from. For example, a few years back, when the song ‘Despacito’ by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee released, Justin Bieber had been included in the song afterwards. After, I had some encounters with white friends that would mention that the song belonged to Justin Bieber, and it bugged me mainly because they Americanized the song, completely forgetting who actually released it. While this isn’t about Despacito, avocados has slowly become more like it. And although avocados have not yet been totally Americanized, their history has been ignored. Now, you see avocados everywhere in America. You see them in regular meals, on toasts, and even fast food chains like Subway or Burger King. The point is, avocados are starting to become more popular which is making them be more of a hipster-like thing in America. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it will be toxic once people forget the real story behind avocados. For me, I will now think about the history of avocados while eating them with the delicious Mexican dishes my mom makes. And hey, I am not telling you to stop eating avocados for good, I am just telling you to maybe think about how that avocado reached your plate.
Works Cited
Avocado, https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/avocado_ars.html
“Food Articles, News & Features Section.” Avocado History: Fruit of the Conquistador, www.foodreference.com/html/art-avocado-fotc.html.
“The History of the Avocados in California.” California Avocados, 2 Feb. 2021, https://californiaavocado.com/avocado101/the-history-of-california-avocados/#:~:text=The%20avocado%20(Persea%20americana)%20originated,this%20wild%20variety%20was%20cultivated
Horst, Megan. “How Racism Has Shaped the American Farming Landscape.” Eater, Eater, 25 Jan. 2019, www.eater.com/2019/1/25/18197352/american-farming-racism-us-agriculture-history.
Laliberte, Marissa. “The Origin of the Word ‘Avocado’ Is About to Make You Really Uncomfortable.” Reader’s Digest, Reader’s Digest, 30 June 2017, www.rd.com/article/avocado-origin/.
National Center for Farmworker Health, Inc
http://www.ncfh.org/uploads/3/8/6/8/38685499/fs-migrant_demographics.pdf
Shahbandeh, M. “Global Production of Avocados by Country, 2019.” Statista, 5 Feb. 2021,
“U.S. Lifts Ban on Avocados From Mexico.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 1 Feb. 1997, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-02-01-fi-24310-story.html.