Gulf Connections: A date with a town called Mecca - in California

How date plantations in the Sunshine State shape America's perceptions of the Middle East

Mecca in California is a three-hour drive from Downtown Los Angeles. Getty

The long drive from Downtown Los Angeles begins on Interstate 105 east, then switches to 605 north until Five Points where you take 10 west, finally escaping the suburban sprawl of Greater LA at San Bernardino.

From here, arid mountains rise on either side of the motorway until it merges into Highway 86 when the exit is right on to Grapefruit Road. Now, it is just short distance to 4th Street and a roundabout with a blue-tiled welcome sign.

After nearly three hours of driving, you have arrived in Mecca.

Mecca, California, that is. Not Makkah in Saudi Arabia. But why is a small town in the Coachella Valley, where attractions include Taco Time and Pizza Milano, named after the holiest city in Islam? The answer is all around you. Date trees.

Parallel climates

Farmers began planting date trees in the Coachella Valley in the 19th century. The climate is hot − rising to 43C in July and August − and the surrounding landscape is mostly desert, with little rainfall except in the winter. Similar to much of the Arabian Peninsula, in other words.

The first trees were imported from the Middle East as “suckers”, tiny plants that spring from the base of date palms. They were sourced across the region, including Iraq, Egypt and Algeria. Many did not survive but, in time, large plantations were established, nurtured by the sunshine and water from underground aquifers.

In 1911, two brothers from the Popenoe family were dispatched to Oman and Iraq, after first mastering rudimentary Arabic. They returned with enough young plants to fill 17 railway wagons for shipment from the port of Galveston to California and lurid stories, as told in the local newspapers, of warding off attacks by hostile desert tribes.

Today it is estimated that around 95 per cent of American dates are grown in the Coachella Valley, with familiar varieties like Medjool and Halawi, which nevertheless sound exotic to the American ear.

The miles of date plantations also created a distinct landscape and culture, one that the locals were quick to exploit for the thousands of visitors to the resort city of Palm Springs, barely 20 minutes' drive away.

Date palms in California. Getty

A tourism hub

From the 1920s, the date farms of Coachella became an increasingly popular tourist day trip, with attractions like Romance and Sex Life of the Date (actually, a short film on the pollination process) and the date milkshake − using date crystals in a process popularised by Shields Date Garden in 1936 and still going strong.

A Middle Eastern theme also began to develop, one based not so much on the reality of life in the region, but more the American Orientalist perspective of Bible stories and stories like Aladdin from Arabian Nights, with their magic carpets and genies. In many ways, the Coachella Valley is a window into American preconceptions about the Arab world.

At the annual Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival, the main stage features a backdrop with imagined Arabian architecture complete with minarets. Past performances since 1947 have included camel riders, an “Arab Marching Band”, “harem dancers” and an annual Queen Scheherazade and Princess Jasmine pageant.

Going along with this, the unincorporated community of Walters changed its name over a century ago to Mecca. Today, Mecca California has a population of around 8,200 and has a small claim to fame as the location for Wild Angels, Roger Corman’s 1966 biker film which starred Peter Fonda and Nancy Sinatra.

The Gulf and Middle East still plays an active role in the Coachella Valley. Arabic words like rutab and khaal, referring to the stages of ripening, have passed into the language of Californian date farmers.

There is also an interchange of ideas between Californian and Middle East date growers. Mark Tadros, a second generation farmer whose family originally migrated from Egypt in the 1960s to found Aziz Farms, says he is impressed with some of the new technology for growing and harvesting coming from the Gulf.

In 2024, he told Aramco World magazine: “The date-growing region here wouldn’t exist without the date-growing region in the Middle East.”