Casa Ramirez, a Mexican folk art store in Houston's Heights neighborhood,...[boasts walls that are] covered with paintings and colorful Day of the Dead dolls. The bookshelves are jammed with tomes on Latino art, culture and history. Piñatas dangle from the ceiling. And colorful blouses imported from Chiapas, Mexico hang on crowded racks. Throughout the shop, the flames of votive candles flicker at little makeshift altars.
(Gardella, A., 2009, October 9, par.1-2)
Macario Ramirez and his wife, Chrissie, opened the store in 1984. They don't just peddle their native wares; they also offer lectures on Mexican culture and traditions by Ramirez and visiting artists and authors, many of whom live in town. "Houston is a microcosm of Latino cultures," says Ramirez, 74.
(Gardella, A., 2009, October 9, par.3)
His devotion to Mexican traditions, such as the Day of the Dead festivities -- in which ancestors are honored and remembered each November -- provides an economic boost to local artists, including painter Laura López Cano.
(Gardella, A., 2009, October 9, par.4)
In addition to serving as his artists' biggest booster, Ramirez is a self-described "hands-on activist." He financially supports alternative education programs that benefit Latinos, pickets oil companies accused of polluting Houston's East End (an area with a sizable Latino population) and demonstrates on behalf of undocumented immigrants. "I never forgot being poor," says Ramirez, who speaks with a Tejano accent and peppers his sentences with Spanish words and phrases.
(Gardella, A., 2009, October 9, par.6)
[more story at the link....]Casa Ramirez, a Mexican folk art store in Houston's Heights... more
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