Meet the Aunties for Zohran Highlight

The historical context is crucial. Immigrant women have always been the quiet architects of change in New York City. In the early 20th century, Jewish and Italian garment workers—many of them teenage girls—led strikes that reshaped labor laws. Chinese immigrant women in Chinatown organized tenant associations that forced the city to confront slum conditions. Puerto Rican and Dominican mothers in the Bronx built tenant unions during the 1970s housing crisis. Caribbean women transformed the city's care economy. Beginning in the mid-20th century, thousands of Jamaican and other Caribbean women found work as home health aides and domestic workers. Their advocacy ultimately shaped the nation's first Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights in 2010.