Andres Bermudez dies at 58; 'Tomato King' and Mexican officeholder - Los Angeles Times
Over the years, he went from farm laborer to foreman and labor contractor and rancher in the Yolo County town of Winters. He grew tomatoes and bell peppers, and invented a tomato-planting machine that made him a fortune.Bermudez built his family a large house on the land he once worked. He added a swimming pool but swam in it only once, almost drowning. "To be rich, you gotta have a swimming pool," he told a reporter.
In 2000, Zacatecas Gov. Ricardo Monreal visited and urged him to run for mayor of Jerez.
Bermudez was unlettered and coarse. Analysts later doubted Monreal meant his invitation seriously, but Bermudez took him up on it and appeared in Jerez to run for mayor in 2001 in Monreal's center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution.
The media quickly dubbed him the Tomato King. Immigration scholars hailed him as a "binational symbol."
Zacatecas has sent hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the United States. Most families in Jerez have relatives
This is a Craftsmen Style Bungalow