“During the hunger strike, 23 days without eating, my sadness, and my desperation manifested on my body, on my face. At first, you don’t notice, but when you take off your mask, you see the physical wear, or desgaste, on your face,” said Rubiela Correa, 44, a house cleaner who lost her job in March of last year and ended up in the city’s shelter system.
Correa is a Queens member of Make the Road New York, which is part of an alliance of immigrant workers organized by the Fund Excluded Workers coalition. Several months ago the group launched a hunger strike ahead of the New York State budget on 16 March, demanding $3.5bn in funding for workers excluded from federal and state COVID-19 relief programs.
But Correa’s transformation, along with the other hunger strikers, wasn’t only physical. The hunger strike presented what she describes as “the opportunity to do something about my desperation” and “the doors began to open… where I could fight for my dignity not just for my own but for others.”
