SALINAS, Calif. – Alejandro Ramirez was 15 when he crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to work alongside his father and brother in California’s strawberry fields.

He spent 12 years toiling for a large grower, living with his wife and child in a garage, learning everything from pulling weeds to planting to driving a tractor.

Now, Ramirez is a U.S. citizen who employs about 80 workers – all of them fellow Latinos – and grows his own strawberries on more than 100 acres in Salinas, one of California’s key berry growing regions.