During the darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic, Martha Medina would occasionally slip into her shuttered store on Los Angeles' oldest street to ensure everything was secure.
Colorful folklorico โปรslotxodresses from each of Mexico's 32 states lined the walls. Black charro suits worn by mariachis and adorned with ornate gold or silver trim hung from a rack in the back. Brightly painted Dia de los Muertos folk art skulls and figurines were safely locked behind a glass case.
Missing were customers, employees and happy pulses of traditional Latin music such as cumbia, mariachi and son jarocho, the Veracruz sound.
“Those days I felt very sad,” Medina said. “I had the feeling I would never open the shop again.”
Back in business now but with government-imposed restrictions, Medina and other merchants and restaurateurs on Olvera Street — and those around the state — are still struggling and facing an uncertain future even as California prepares to fully reopen its economy Tuesday for the first time in. 15 months.
“My only hope is to continue day to day,” said Medina, who remains optimistic. “I don't expect normal. I expect semi-normal.”
California imposed the first statewide shutdown in March 2020 and is among the last to fully reopen, though businesses have operated at reduced capacity for months. It was an early model for how restrictions could keep the virus at bay but later became the U.S. epiccenter of a deadly winter surge that overwhelmed hospitals in Los Angeles and other areas.
