Marta Felicitas Ramirez de Galedary is a co-founder of the
La Asociacion Latino Musulmana de America (LALMA) in 1999. LALMA is at the forefront of providing information and support to
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
s in
Southern California.
She is a former nursing director at the UMMA Clinic in Los Angeles. Galedary also works with
LA Voice, and
MuslimARC, (Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative.)
She is also a registered nurse.
Biography
Marta Felicitas Ramirez was born into a ranching family in
Guerrero,
Mexico. She was the youngest of eleven daughters and was a student at a Catholic school.
She attended the Colegio Hispano Americano in
Mexico City, studying philosophy, art, psychology, and western literature. Galedary then married and had a son. She later took English lessons at a
British Embassy
This is a list of diplomatic missions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, excluding honorary consulates. The UK has one of the largest global networks of diplomatic missions. UK diplomatic missions to capitals of other Com ...
institute before becoming an exchange student in
Bath, England in 1981. There she first learned of
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
and befriended three of her Muslim classmates.
Galedary divorced her husband and moved to the United States through an exchange program. She says that she came to Islam through much soul-searching and study and embraced the religion in 1985.
In September 1999, Galedary joined four other Muslim women at the
Islamic Center of Southern California
The Islamic Center of Southern California is a mosque and Islamic cultural center located in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Vermont Avenue adjacent to the Chinese Consulate General in the Wilshire Center neighborhood of Los Angeles. It ...
in Los Angeles to start a Latina Muslim study group and Spanish language library.
She has been leading Spanish-language classes for new Muslim converts. She is also a
khateebah at the
Women's Mosque of America.
Her conversion story is featured in "Latino Muslims: Our Journeys to Islam."
See also
*
Latino Muslims
*
Black Muslims
*
Islam in the United States
*
Latin American Muslims
*
Latino American Dawah Organization
The Latino American Dawah Organization (LADO) is a grassroots organization founded in September 1997 by a handful of Latino converts to Islam in New York City. The idea began with Samantha Sanchez who then recruited the help of Juan Alvarado and S ...
References
External links
LALMA website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galedary, Marta Felicitas
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
People from Guerrero
Converts to Islam
American people of Mexican descent
American nonprofit executives
Nurses from California
American women nurses
People from Los Angeles
21st-century American women
American anti-racism activists
Muslim anti-racism activists