Our coverage of Hispanic Heritage month now takes us to Queens, where an artist is using her talent to help encourage day laborers and service industry workers to battle wage theft. Borough reporter Ruschell Boone has more in this report.
Sol Aramendi is slowly growing into her role as an activist for Hispanic workers in Jackson Heights. That was not her goal when she started her art program a few years ago, but after hearing the complaints of many of her students, she began to use her classes as a platform to fight for immigrant issues.
"There is a lot of injustice and there is a lot of problems with access. So we started thinking about those things," Aramendi said.
Many of her students are day laborers and service industry workers. We caught up with the group as they were making posters for the Justice for Job Seekers campaign that the group NICE -- New Immigrant Community Empowerment -- has been working on.
But their big project is a smartphone app that Aramendi has helped to create.
"They can create an alert that is a warning, a text to all the people that have the app, and also, they can report when their wages were not paid," Aramendi said.
Aramendi is also an immigrant. She moved to the U.S. from Argentina in 2004 to open an architectual firm, but when that didn't work out, she pursed her other passion - teaching art and photography.
She is also the founder of Project Luz, a program that shows immigrants how to use their camera to create social engagement.
"I have the heart of a teacher. I'm also an artist. But at the same time, I feel like I want to do something to change things," Aramendi said.
For these workers, she has already had a big impact in their lives through art and technology. The Journaler App is scheduled to launch as a pilot program in November.