First robbed of freedom by enslavement, then robbed of life by coronavirus

This portrait of Fedelina “Nanay” Lugasan, who was enslaved and forced to do domestic work for decades, most recently in Northridge, was painted by Eliseo Art Silva. (Courtesy image) A Forest Lawn attendant guided Aquilina Soriano-Versoza into the room where the body of Fedelina Lugasan lay atop a gurney, a blanket pulled over her torso, her head resting on a pillow. Separated by the coronavirus pandemic while living, it was only Lugasan’s death that allowed Soriano-Versoza to see her for the first time in months.

Soriano-Versoza met Lugasan in May 2018 when Lugasan stepped into an FBI agent’s car and got away from the family that enslaved her as a domestic worker for, according to Lugasan and her advocates, more than six decades, most recently in the San Fernando Valley. Soriano-Versoza and other members of the Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles bonded with Lugasan who at age 81 had entered an unfamiliar world. They called her “Nanay” – “Mother” in Tagalog.

Fedelina Lugasan sits with family members during an event at the Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday, March 10, 2020. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) But this May, just two years after […]

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