By Dylan Hart
Samantha Ramirez-Herrera was only 6 years old when she crossed the desert into Phoenix, Arizona, with her parents and her two sisters in the early ‘90s.
Now, Ramirez-Herrera, 33, is the owner of OffThaRecord, a creative content company based in Atlanta which focuses on storytelling. She calls herself a “serial entrepreneur,” and speaks at college campuses across the United States, including her Jan. 24 visit to USF St. Petersburg.
But her journey to success was fraught with obstacles and challenges — financial, legal and cultural.
Ramirez-Herrera was born in Mexico City. Her family struggled to survive. Her father dreamed of opening an artisanal candy shop in America and set out across the border with his family.
“When we got to Phoenix, I was very confused,” she said. “I was confused about the language I didn’t speak. I was confused about why we were even there.”
Ramirez-Herrera recalls wearing “wedding dresses” with her sisters in their house as part of Catholic holy communion, a cultural practice she never understood as a child.
When she wasn’t in school, she spent the majority of her childhood peeling sweet potatoes for her father’s business. But her feelings of isolation persisted at school and at home.
“There were things even in my culture that I had to recognize were toxic,” she said. “My father would tell me I shouldn’t speak because I was a girl. Kids at school would tell me I shouldn’t speak because of my accent.”
In high school, her anxieties about the future heightened. She realized there would be no way for her to attend college. As a teenager, both of her sisters attempted suicide.
“My friends and I, we all danced to Britney Spears together, we all went to prom together, but I was undocumented,” she said. “My sisters and I felt like we were forced to be invisible.”
After high school, Ramirez-Herrera was briefly married and had a son, Christopher. Soon after, she divorced, despite her family telling her it was a cultural taboo.
“I decided I was going to live boldly,” she said. “Everybody thought I was crazy. All I heard was ‘it’s impossible,’ and I wanted to break that.”
She soon moved to Atlanta, a place she saw as an entrepreneurial mecca, and started a YouTube channel featuring people who “lived outside of the box” — particularly local musicians and artists, including local rapper T.I.
She pitched stories she wrote about Atlanta locals to publications. While she only made $40 per story, she was amazed by the idea of being paid to write, having subsisted in Atlanta by “finding jobs that would help (her) survive.”
Ramirez-Herrera used her YouTube channel as an opportunity to learn editing, marketing and videography.
Eventually, her connection to a local entertainment lawyer led her to a job opportunity making content for a corporation in Atlanta.
“I had never stepped into a corporate building before,” she said.
While she looked out of place with green hair and piercings, the CEO loved her work and said to focus on getting accepted into the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which she initially couldn’t afford.
She eventually received DACA documents and used her position at that corporation to launch her own company.
Since then, Ramirez-Herrera has worked with numerous clients, including Stacy Abrams and Johns Hopkins Medicine. She even helped start her father’s business – El Sueño Rico, or The Sweet Dream. The shop received its name partly because it’s a candy store, and because “it’s his American dream.”
A major part of Ramirez-Herrera’s message involves increasing the visibility of immigrants who “go against the narrative that we are bad people,” whether they be entrepreneurs like her or others who do good in their communities.
She has appeared on MSNBC and spoken at the HATCH entrepreneurship conference to promote that message. She subsequently appeared on the cover of Incomer Magazine’s list of “50 Reasons Why America is Great.” An artist in Atlanta even painted a mural of her.
“I was able to be a voice for DREAMers,” she said. “If I had not lived loudly, I wouldn’t be here.”
“We are all a living story. Every story matters, and we will all be told to live quietly at some point in our lives, but we shouldn’t,” she said.
And Ramirez-Herrera’s favorite story?
“My story. I’m still writing it every day and I have the pen.”
