Mexican lawmaker, ‘tomato king’, Andres Bermudez, dead at 58

Mexican lawmaker, ‘tomato king’, Andres Bermudez, dead at 58

Posted on Feb 6, 2009 in News & Views by PMC Comments Off

Andres Bermudez, who made a fortune as a “tomato king” and history by becoming the first migrant living in the United States to win a Mexican mayorship, has died of cancer. He was 58.

 

Bermudez, a flamboyant lawmaker for President Felipe Calderon’s National Action Party, or PAN, died Thursday, the party said in a statement. He had battled stomach cancer since March.

He died at a hospital in Houston, where he was receiving treatment since December, the daily newspaper El Sol de Zacatecas reported.

Andres Bermudez left Zacatecas state as an impoverished field hand in 1974. He and his pregnant wife sneaked across the border, hiding in the trunk of a car. After a short stint working in a suitcase factory, Bermudez began laboring in the fields of northern California.

His luck changed after he invented a device for planting tomatoes. The new contraption quickly became popular among growers, earning Bermudez the nickname, “The Tomato King.” It also earned him a small fortune.

He returned to his hometown of Jerez, Zacatecas in 2001 as a celebrity, a migrant made good from a spot lacking opportunities — a place where much of the population survives on remittances sent home from the United States.

He capitalized on his notoriety, capturing the popular vote in the 2001 mayor’s race, but was subsequently denied office by election officials, who ruled that he failed to meet the state’s residency requirements. After successfully lobbying for a change in the law, he won again in 2004, this time running under the banner of Zacatecas’ least popular political party.

“I’m not the king of tomatoes here,” Bermudez humbly said during an interview at his wood-paneled office in Jerez city hall on a chilly December morning. “I’m the king of tomatoes in the (United States); I live like a king in the (United States), but not here.”

Bermudez’s electoral feat and his incredible rags-to-riches story captured international headlines. Observers hailed his triumph as an example of migrants flexing their political muscles in the communities they have long propped up through remittances.

The Tomato King promised to turn Jerez, a sleepy burg of 60,000 in the Central Mexican highlands, into a mini America, a well-governed place teeming with prosperity and most importantly jobs. And in a threat to the old guard, he vowed to “Get the rats out of city hall.” Somewhat bizarrely, he also promised visas for young workers heading to the United States and tomato-planting devices for poor campesinos (peasant farmers), who have been abandoning the countryside in droves.

Although rough around the edges — he was known to urinate in public and speaks passable English peppered with off-color words — the Tomato King at first encounter seemed more uncouth than threatening. A burly and gregarious fellow with a junior-high-school education, who virtually always wore black cowboy clothing, dark glass and thick gold jewelry,

Bermudez regularly welcomed foreign journalists. His celebrity, improbable story and Robin Hood-style rhetoric generate incredible curiosity. He employed a competent media relations staff — something rare in Mexican politics.

But with notoriety came controversy and enemies. Several journalists and opposition city councilors alleged Bermudez has engaged in corruption, nepotism, and lewd behavior and governed in an authoritarian style — like a king — intimidating opponents and employing thugish tactics. Emotions about Bermudez —a polemic figure — ran high. Many Jerez residents preferred not to make on-the-record comments about the mayor.

As Bermudez tells it, he returned to Mexico out of a love for his hometown; a desire to give something back to his people, who the Tomato King said, “See hope in me.”

After taking office, he initiated a bus service for students pursuing university studies 50 kilometers away in Zacatecas. He also tripled the number of scholarships given to needy students. And in a well-worn political stunt common to virtually every Mexican municipality, he passed out 700 backpacks to children and roofing materials and cement to home and business owners.

He also viewed himself as a sort of pioneer, a migrant returning to unseat the old corrupt guard, which had presided over the demise of Zacatecas and sent hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing the state.

n 2006, Bermudez, who shuttled between his ranch in California and Jerez, won a seat in the lower house of Congress for the PAN.

Tags: immigrants, Tomato King