Profile: Celia Ramirez, owner of Ramirez Meat Market

Celia Ramirez was born in Puebla, Mexico and like many people, she migrated to the U.S. for a better life. Before, she used to sell fruits and vegetables and now she is an owner of the “Ramirez Meat Market” that is located in East Los Angeles. She describes her market being very busy on Sundays because that is the day people rest to spend time with their family and they go to buy many different things to cook.

Celia has been living in East Los Angeles for 16 years, since the years pasted she’s seen improvements in the community. Some of the improvements is that there’s less violence and less graffiti in the walls. She also mentioned that her store would get robbed and she was really afraid. So afraid that at one point she thought of selling her store. Some ways she used to stop people from stealing stuff from her store is putting cameras but throughout the years it all changed and now it’s a lot calmer.

She likes living in East Los Angeles because it’s cultural and there’s a lot of Latinos, and since theirs Latinos she feels safe here. The reason why Ciara decided to start her business is because she thought it would be something interesting to start with her husband. Something she wanted to know before starting her own business is knowing more about business because she didn’t have experience with business.

“Ramirez Meat Market” is not the only business store that she has, she was successful with her store that she had before opening one in East LA. She need about 20 million to open her business store. The reason why Ciara doesn’t have any employees in her store is because she has time to be in the store and her daughter helps her out when she needs help. She decided to put her store in the middle of a neighborhood is because back then she remembers that there was no stores around houses and that was when she decided to own a business.

The reason why we believe Celia Ramirez to be an East LA celebrity is because she gives provides many resources to the community. Celia, being a business owner in East L.A. is not recognized as an East L.A. celebrity because people normally think of celebrities like actors, singers or Hollywood stars. Celia is a true celebrity to our community of East L.A. because if she was gone many people would be upset because she is known by many people.

Her store was redesigned during the project “Proyecto MercadoFRESCO” where her store was being redesigned. Before, her store didn’t have many fruits and vegetables until this project took place. This program provided her with a vegetable and fruit refrigerator to keep them fresh. They also united people that live in the community to show them how to cook in a healthier way. Her market was improved and in that way she was able to sell healthier food protecting her customer’s health.