Her store is a mile away from the International Bridge that connects Hidalgo, Texas, and Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and across the street from the Mercado Guadalupano where vendors hawk fruits, cowboy boots and herbal remedies, but also tactical gear. According to data from the Mexican government, more than 94% of the residents of the city reported they felt unsafe there last year. It’s been over a year since the State Department issued a “do not travel” advisory, to the dismay of business owners and officials on both sides of the river.

Mrs. Ramírez was 19 in the early ‘80s when she ran away with el Mago Dalton, a magician she met when the circus came to her town in Hidalgo. The couple eloped and headed north. Settling in Reynosa, Mrs. Ramírez got bored, started selling piñatas, and eventually learned to make them. “I came here with fear, but it was because I didn’t know anyone, the fear of coming alone,” she said. “The city was not as dangerous as today.”

Business prospered quickly, and their family did, too. In the 1980s and ‘90s, Dalton Dávila and Dionicia Ramírez raised five children. Piñatería Ramírez bought a truck, opened a workshop, hired 20 people, started processing export permits — and learned that it’s illegal to send Disney piñatas across the border. El mago Dalton quit the prestidigitation business.

The couple sent their children to college, and several of them turned to the family business for employment when they struggled to find a job. Dalton Jr., a chemical engineer by training, thought of ways of broadening the age of their customers beyond young children and their parents. At 15, he had sculpted a pole dancer.

Instead of popular cartoons, he started fashioning piñatas out of internet memes and viral sensations: local politicians, drug lords, Hollywood stars. “I started playing with piñata art as a means of expression,” he said.

His parents were not thrilled. Not because some clients complained that their merchandise had gotten too racy — which did happen — but because Dalton Jr.’s paper sculptures took longer to make. “I had to fight my father who thought, ‘You will never survive with your piñatas, you make one a day,’” he said. But through social media he found something besides inspiration: more clients.

“It opened up our market a bit,” said his sister, Denisse Dávalos, 30, an industrial engineer who deals with customers. “People come from the Valley to meet us, they visit to see a piñata that has gone viral, they take a picture. It’s very nice,” she said.