{"id":3353,"date":"2020-03-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3353"},"modified":"2020-06-12T15:16:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T15:16:34","slug":"lorena-borjas-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3353","title":{"rendered":"Lorena Borjas, activist"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lorena Borjas \u2011 a Mexican-American transgender and immigrant rights activist, known as the mother of the transgender Latinx community in Queens, New York – died of Covid-19 on March 30, 2020.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Her work on behalf of immigrant and transgender communities garnered recognition throughout New York City and the United States. She lived for many years in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, where she was a community figure and leader.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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In 1960, Borjas was born in Veracruz, Mexico. When she was seventeen years old, she ran away from home and lived on the streets of Mexico City. She later studied public accounting in Mexico City.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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In 1981, Borjas emigrated to the United States at twenty years old, with the goal of obtaining hormone therapy and transitioning to live as a woman. Taking a job in a belt factory, she initially shared an apartment in the New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens with 20 transgender women who worked as sex workers. As a young woman, Borjas aided the women she lived with, along with other transgender sex workers. Initially, she primarily provided aid to Mexican transgender women, but she later expanded to help all Latin American trans women. As she explained,<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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"We were women without families and who had run away from our countries, persecuted for expressing our identity, for being ourselves. Here in New York, we did not have the life and freedom we had been dreaming about. We also endured violence and abuse here. In those days, it was a real crime to be a transgender immigrant of color.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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In 1986, Borjas was granted amnesty, under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. In 1990, Borjas became a legal permanent resident of the United States. In 2019, Borjas became a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Borjas experienced many challenges in the 1990s. She became addicted to crack cocaine. As a result, she began to engage in riskier sex work. She ultimately found herself in a relationship in which she was a victim of sex trafficking. She was arrested many times during this period, which made her ineligible for green card renewal or naturalization. In the late 1990s, she escaped from the abusive relationship and overcame her drug addiction.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Borjas was HIV-positive, and she saw many of her friends pass away due to HIV-related illnesses.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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In 1995, Borjas decided to make activism her life's work. For decades, Borjas worked to protect transgender victims of human trafficking (which she herself had experienced), slavery, and violence. She hosted women who had been ostracized from their families in her own apartment until they were able to support themselves. She walked the streets seeking women who needed her help, providing condoms and food, and connecting these women to social services. She worked without pay to facilitate access to HIV testing and hormone therapy for transgender sex workers, including setting up a weekly HIV testing clinic in her home, and providing syringe exchanges for women taking hormone injections. In 1995, she organized her first march in support of the transgender community.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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As reflected by Cecilia Gentili, a friend and a transgender leader: "Needed a lawyer? Doctor? Housing? A job? She was there. Lorena was that person who, if you got arrested, you called her at three in the morning and she would answer. First thing in the morning she would be in court with a lawyer to get you out of jail."<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Borjas became involved in local nonprofit organizations as well. She first came the Sylvia Rivera Law Project as a client. She eventually began working for the project on immigration and criminal justice issues. With Chase Strangio, Borjas founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, which provides bail assistance to LGBT defendants. She became a counselor for the Community Healthcare Network's Transgender Family Program, where she worked to obtain legal aid for victims of human trafficking.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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During the coronavirus pandemic, Borjas created and promoted a mutual aid fund, via GoFundMe, to help transgender people who were impacted by the economic crisis.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Borjas was not paid for the majority of her activism. She supported herself through a variety of jobs, including counseling sessions, community outreach, occasional talks, and cleaning houses.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Borjas earned honors from former Mayor David Dinkins, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. In 2019, she was declared a New York Woman of Distinction in the State Senate. Following her death, New York City Council member Francisco Moya announced plans to rename a street in his district, where Borjas lived, after her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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In 1994, Borjas was arrested and found guilty of facilitating a crime in the fourth degree, a charge dating back to her early years in the U.S., when Borjas was, in fact, a victim of trafficking and forced prostitution. She lost the immigration status she had gained under a 1986 amnesty law and lived under the threat of deportation. Starting in 2010, Borjas sought to have her own criminal record expunged, with the legal support of the Transgender Law Center. In recognition of her community activism, she was granted a pardon in 2017 by New York governor Andrew Cuomo, restoring her status as a legal immigrant, an outcome she had considered "farfetched and nearly impossible."<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Borjas died at Coney Island Hospital on March 30, 2020 at 5:22 am, aged 59, from complications of COVID-19. She received memorials and tributes online from many public figures, including Chase Strangio, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Letitia James, Corey Johnson, and Monica Roberts. A funeral service was organized by friends and loved ones via Zoom, due to social distancing restrictions, with about 250 people in attendance.<\/p>\r\n<\/p>

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Lorena Borjas \u2011 a Mexican-American transgender and immigrant rights activist, known as the mother of the transgender Latinx community in Queens, New York – died of Covid-19 on March 30, 2020.   Her work on behalf of immigrant and transgender communities garnered recognition throughout New York City and the United States. She lived for many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[43,46,7019,15],"tags":[779,6174,6173],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/wp-content\/uploads\/imageholder\/uploads\/Lorena_Borjas.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7848,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=7848","url_meta":{"origin":3353,"position":0},"title":"Lorena Dur\u00e1n, Paramedic","date":"May 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Lorena Dur\u00e1n \u2013 a Paramedic at Centro de salud de Lastarria, Temuco, Chile - passed away on, 2020, after suffering from COVID-19. Lorena wa 42 years old. \u00a0The Mayor of Gorbea, Guido Siegmund, mourned the death of the woman. \"Lorena left us her smile forever, that personalized and friendly attention\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chile"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1873,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1873","url_meta":{"origin":3353,"position":1},"title":"Philip F. Foglia, lawyer and civic activist","date":"April 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Philip F. Foglia lawyer and civic activist, advocate for Italian American rights issues died from COVID-19 on April 21, 2020, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights, Manhattan, at the age of 69. Philip F. Foglia (November 27, 1950 \u2013 April 21, 2020) was an American lawyer, prosecutor, civic activist,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "High Profilers"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4596,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=4596","url_meta":{"origin":3353,"position":2},"title":"Luiz Alves de Brito, Nurse","date":"April 2, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Luiz Alves de Brito- a Licensed Practical Nurse who was a Nursing Technician in Mossor\u00f3, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil \u2013 passed away due to COVID-19. Luis Alves de Brito was 48 years old. It was reported on April 2, 2020 Luiz worked for 22 years as a nursing technician\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brazil"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2312,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2312","url_meta":{"origin":3353,"position":3},"title":"Ella King Russell Torrey, human rights activist","date":"April 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Ella King Russell Torrey \u2011 public information officer for Eleanor Roosevelt, a recipient of the United Nations Human Rights Hero Award, and a human rights activist \u2011 died of complications from Covid-19 on April 14, 2020. She was 94 years old. \u00a0 Ella King Russell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "High Profilers"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2573,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2573","url_meta":{"origin":3353,"position":4},"title":"Iris M. Zavala, author","date":"April 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Iris M. Zavala \u2013a Puerto Rican author, scholar, and poet, who later lived in Barcelona, Spain \u2013 died from Covid-19 on 10 April 2020 \u00a0 She had over 50 works to her name, plus hundreds of articles, dissertations, and conferences and many of her writings, including \"Nocturna, mas no funesta\",\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8761,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=8761","url_meta":{"origin":3353,"position":5},"title":"Helen Damico, litt\u00e9rateur","date":"April 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Helen Damico \u2011 a scholar of Old English and Old English literature \u2013 passed away on April 14, 2020 after suffering from Covid-19. Damico was a professor emerita at the University of New Mexico, where she began teaching in 1981 and founded the Institute for Medieval Studies. 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