Her father, Andrès Moran, was a construction worker who built houses even for those who could not afford a roof. When he died in 2000, his funeral was akin to that of a president, Ms. Toribio said. Her mother, Concepción Santos, was an unofficial money lender, defying the stereotype of women in a subordinate role.

“I raised my family teaching them that you have to help those who have the least,” Ms. Santos, 69, said in the Toribio family’s living room. She was a teenager in November 1960 when three famous women, the Mirabal sisters, were murdered as a result of their activism against the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Ms. Toribio has lived that lesson. But in New York, it still comes with a personal cost. She rarely sleeps. She rises early to make lunches for her children, Oswaldo, 8, and Fatima, 4; she is not always home for dinner. When she gets home from meetings, she prepares others’ applications for the city’s new municipal identity cards. She is tethered to her cellphone, answering even at 2 a.m. to help workers fearing deportation or illness.

“Put it this way,” said her husband, Roque Toribio, 35, a teddy bear of a man, “sometimes I get mad at her because she doesn’t want to stop. Her thing is, do whatever she can for others, no matter what it takes. She could be sick and she’s answering phones, going places, taking people to wherever they need to go.”

He loved her since they were young in Navarrete, but was then too shy to tell her. He came to New York at 14, but it was not until 2006 that they saw each other again. They were married two years later.