Winery Owner Amelia Morán Ceja, Daughter Talk Latino Identity, Heritage

Sept. 22, 2016, 8:40 AM EDT / Updated Sept. 22, 2016, 8:40 AM EDT

By Olivia Santini, Jim Seida, Jon Sweeney and Sandra Lilley

The story of Ceja Vineyards is the American Dream come true for a Mexican-American family that dared to think big and work hard enough to make it happen.

Amelia Morán Ceja, president of Ceja Vineyards, came to California from Mexico with her family when she was 12 years old. She told her father that first weekend they were working in the fields that someday she would own a vineyard of her own.

A few years later, she and her young husband Pedro, who had also come from Mexico with his family, decided to take the plunge along with his parents and purchased land to make this happen.

Decades later, award-winning Ceja Vineyards is one of the few Latino-owned wineries in the state's world-renowned Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Morán Ceja is the first Mexican-American woman to be president of a vineyard and has enjoyed recognition for her business success.

"No one ever thinks I own the company," Morán Ceja said. "Why? Because I am an immigrant, Latina woman."

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Dalia Ceja, Amelia and Pedro's daughter, is the company's Brand Marketing Manager, bringing new techniques and an expanded social media presence to her work and helping steer the company's future endeavors.

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As part of NBC Latino's "One Heritage, Two Generations" series during Hispanic Heritage Month, the mother and daughter share how their Mexican roots have strongly influenced their family's upbringing as well as their work and their product.

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Olivia Santini

Olivia Santini is a producer in the NBC News Universal City bureau.

Jim Seida

Jim Seida is a senior multimedia producer for NBCNews.com, delivering video and still imagery on a variety of topics including breaking news, natural disasters, and health and business stories.

Jim has extensive experience reporting visual stories for the Web and television, and his original multimedia reporting has been recognized by the Online News Association, National Press Photographers Association and Pictures of the Year International.

Jon Sweeney

Jon Sweeney joined NBCNews.com as a senior multimedia producer in January 2012, but this is a return visit for him, having worked for msnbc.com from 2000-2006. Sweeney is responsible for site-wide photo editing and social media initiatives focused on photography. Currently he manages the NBC News Instagram account among his other individual responsibilities. Sweeney reports to Jim Collins, director of photography.

Sweeney returned to NBCNews.com from The Indianapolis Star, where he was the assistant managing editor for digital news. In that role, Sweeney was responsible for the editorial direction for the state’s largest newsroom on all its digital platforms. This included managing breaking news coverage, multimedia, special projects, design initiatives, and databases. During his tenure at the Star, he helped launch the paper’s first iOS app, guided the newsroom through the social media revolution and produced several documentary films in cooperation with the local public broadcasting station.

Prior to his work at the Star, Sweeney was msnbc.com’s East Coast director of multimedia, managing a department of designers, interactive producers, and photo and video editors in New Jersey and London.

He cut his teeth as a photojournalist and freelance photographer in Chicago where he ushered in the digital photography era at Pioneer Press Newspapers, and learned digital video editing by producing documentaries.

Sweeney is the recipient of several awards that honor his achievements as a digital newsroom leader and innovator from the Associate Press, Hoosier State Press Association, Best of Gannett.

He lives in Cranford, N.J. with his family.

Sandra Lilley

Sandra Lilley is a senior editor at NBCNews.com.

Winery Owner Amelia Morán Ceja, Daughter Talk Latino Identity, Heritage

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSHow California prison reforms helped free a serial rapist called ‘America’s creepiest heir’

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSMel Robbins has midterms advice for you

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFlorida cop charged with possessing dead man’s house had history of misconduct

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSRising diesel prices hit school districts hard ahead of the midterm elections

FOR SUBSCRIBERS‘There goes Texas’: The swing county that could determine the state’s next senator

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSDemocratic? Republican? Most new young voters register as neither

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSDOJ’s ‘shocking’ flurry of pre-election activity breaks precedent, former officials say

FOR SUBSCRIBERSElectronic machines aren’t flipping votes, despite online claims, election officials say

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