Fates Crossed at Beating Site

While Los Angeles and the nation debate the videotaped beating of two illegal border-crossers two weeks ago, the man who owns the South El Monte property near where the incident took place shakes his head at the irony of being a footnote in the most recent, often ugly discussion about immigration.

The owner of a thriving nursery business, with five locations of row upon row of green plants, Ramon Gallo, 46, is a tax-paying legal resident and shining story of hard-earned success.

He also was once an illegal immigrant from Mexico. And, like many of his 65 employees, Gallo watched with horror as his business--perhaps an example of the best side of immigration--became the site for what may be the worst side of the same issue.

“It upsets me, because I am an immigrant,” Gallo mused in Spanish, running a well-calloused hand across his lined, tanned brow. “What would have happened if I wasn’t able to come in?”

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The deep lines around Gallo’s eyes testify to his many smiles, but the gray strands in his black hair are a reminder of his struggles over the years.

A thoughtful man, Gallo walked the rows between his thousands of plants with his attention on his products one afternoon last week. He carefully ran his fingers along the leaves of California pepper and palm trees, softly uttering their Latin names as he studied the foliage.

The giant electrical towers now familiar to TV viewers who watched the group of would-be immigrants dart around them, seem incidental compared to the greenery and flashes of colored flowers planted around them in wooden boxes and black plastic containers.

That he has had the opportunity to build this business, Gallo said, makes him more sympathetic to the plight of the 19 illegal border-crossers apprehended April 1 after an 80-mile chase. When their pickup truck pulled off the freeway, the immigrants jumped from the vehicle and ran through his nursery trees in a vain effort to escape from the Riverside sheriff’s deputies tailing them.

His own journey north, Gallo said, closely mirrors the path taken by the group that became trapped in the rows of plants.

Ramon Gallo y Mendoza left Jalisco, Mexico, at age 26 with the dream of one day buying a house in the United States.

He saved for a bus ticket to Tijuana, a one-day, two-night trip from his hometown, and waited for a smuggler, or coyote, to take him to the United States.

He and two friends twice tried unsuccessfully to walk an eight-hour trip across the border on their own. Both times they were returned by immigration authorities to Mexico.

The third time, they met with the coyote, found a way across and, just like the group that alighted at his nursery, piled into a car for the trip to Los Angeles. His car, however, made it.

“We all come to this country anyway we can,” he said, speaking through a translator, though alternating between Spanish and English. “We all come to this country for the same reason, we all risk the same things.”

Immigration policies were more relaxed then, Gallo said, and soon he received his green card and achieved resident alien status.

Gallo got his first job, working at a Pasadena nursery for $1.65 an hour, through an uncle.

He worked there for 17 years, learning everything he could, saving every dime, scrimping so that still more could go into the bank. At the end of his time working for others, he had saved $50,000--the result of “a lot of work and a lot of sacrifices,” he said. “My shoes were all torn--I wouldn’t buy anything.”

He opened the first of his nurseries almost 10 years ago in San Gabriel. The first two years, before he broke even, were grueling: seven days a week of digging, planting, potting and planning, from sunup to the dark hours when he could no longer see the leaves in front of him.

The profits, when they finally came, went back into the business. Gallo eventually opened other nurseries in Norwalk, Hacienda Heights, the South El Monte site and a new, almost-finished operation in Rancho Cucamonga.

“I don’t like to brag,” Gallo said. “There are lots of plants, and I’ve worked very hard. I’ve put forth all the effort I can.”

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Today, Gallo sells more than $1 million worth of greenery and flowers to businesses and contractors, working a minimum of six days a week.

“What I do in an office, I don’t really call work--it’s not as hard as the work I was accustomed to doing,” he said. “Work is being next to a pile of dirt and shoveling it.”

But his soil-encrusted boots and not-quite-clean hands testify that he doesn’t stray too far from his plants.

Gallo doesn’t mind the smudges even on his prized possession, a gold bracelet emblazoned in script with his initials, because it somehow seems appropriate.

“It’s also dirty from work,” he said, running his fingers along the raised letters and smiling. “I love my bracelet very much, because I worked very hard and very many hours to be able to buy it.”

Gallo said he has much to be thankful for--his good fortune in his adopted home, his capacity for hard work. What he asks for now, he said, is that others be allowed to make their contributions to society.

“I wish people would understand that the immigrants are not bad people--they are good, hard-working, humble people,” Gallo said. “The United States has given a lot of immigrants the opportunity to better themselves, and I hope it won’t stop here.”

The investigation into the deputies’ conduct is continuing. But Gallo is saddened as much by the missed opportunities as the beatings. “There could be some other people, not like me,” he says, “but even better, who want to come here.”