The Associated Press

In this photo taken July 9, 2012, Alejandro Ramirez, left, and his son Alejandro Jr., right, pose among the family's hundred acre strawberry field in Salinas, Calif. Ramirez is part of a quiet cultural revolution that has changed the face of the $2.3 billion strawberry industry in California, where most growers today are Latino, a rare occurrence in the world of farming, where most growers of other crops are white. (AP Photo/Gosia Wozniacka)

By GOSIA WOZNIACKA Associated Press

SALINAS, Calif. (AP) — 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.

‘‘This is my pride,’’ Ramirez said on a recent afternoon, gazing over the rolling fields filled with neat rows of plants. ‘‘Twenty years ago, I had nothing. The strawberry is my life.’’

And not just his. Strawberries have given Latinos more ownership opportunities than any other major crop. Latinos now comprise two-thirds of strawberry growers in California, where 90 percent of the nation’s strawberries are grown. Most growers of other major crops are white.