About Aminta

Aminta is a proud New Yorker born in the Bronx to Guyanese immigrants and raised in Queens. She attended P.S. 63 in Ozone Park, and later attended Our Lady of Grace in Howard Beach. Aminta graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School in 2006. It was at Molloy that Aminta first fell in love with community service. She later received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Fordham College at Lincoln Center in 2010 and a Juris Doctor from Fordham Law School in 2013.

In 2013, Aminta co-founded “Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus,” a non-profit organization committed to promoting social justice through the values at the heart of the Hindu faith. Through Sadhana, Aminta has worked closely with the Queens-based Indo-Caribbean population to promote environmentally friendly worship practices, particularly at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. She has also led workshops on feminism and faith, organized immigration know your rights forums, and been a prominent voice in NYC interfaith activism.

In 2015, in an effort to increase civic engagement and political awareness in her community, Aminta began writing a weekly column for her local newspaper, The West Indian. Aminta is also currently a contributing writer for Brown Girl Magazine.

During college, Aminta volunteered with Peace First (formerly Peace Games), a national non-profit organization that seeks to create peacemakers among youth, particularly in inner cities, and interned with the Queens District Attorney’s Office, often serving as a teacher’s assistant for the STAR Track program.

During law school, passionate about women’s empowerment and domestic violence awareness, Aminta worked with the Si Se Puede! Women’s Cooperative in Sunset Park through Fordham Law’s Community Economic Development Clinic, as well as the Queens Family Justice Center and Sanctuary for Families’ Courtroom Advocates Project. With aspirations to become a trial attorney, Aminta served on the Brendan Moore Trial Advocacy Center and interned with the New York City Transit Authority’s Trial Division. Aminta also travelled to the Dominican Republic several times with Fordham Law School student group “Universal Justice” to raise awareness about the human rights issue of statelessness among Dominicans of Haitian descent. She served as Co-President of the North American South Asian Law Students Association (NASALSA).

After graduating from law school, Aminta served as a New York State Public Service Excelsior Fellow under New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. While she originally thought she’d become a trial lawyer, Aminta found her true calling in policy-making. She is a Senior Legislative Counsel for the New York City legislature. In her capacity at the New York City Council, where she’s worked since 2014, Aminta drafts and negotiates legislation spanning from areas such as women’s rights, poverty to housing and homelessness, and child welfare. Aminta is admitted to practice in the New York State Bar. She and her work have been featured in many media outlets such as the New York Times,  the Huffington Post, NY1 (Spectrum News), Colorlines, the New York Law Journal, and CBS.

Aminta is married to her best friend, Rohan Narine, who is also a community activist in New York City. The two live in Howard Beach, Queens.