Ramirez was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1929, where her father, the Mexican bullfighter Jose Ramirez, known as Gaonita, was appearing. Her mother, Gloria Cestero, was the daughter of a politically active Puerto Rican family and subsequently became a leader in the Puerto Rican immigrant community in New York City.[1] Ramirez moved to New York City at the age of six or seven.