Issues in the community

Update of Downtown

Madison Ave. - downtown has a lot of Spanish restaurants in Perth Amboy.

The mall is beyond small. Reminds me of this flee market place my mom and aunt go to in the city

State St. - has three restaurants “Mi Tierra” “El Pollon” and “El Taco Loco”

State Fayette gardens- a little townhouse where Latinos live.

E &H communications- this is where people go to make international calls to their home countries.

A new restaurant fancy restaurant/grocery store opened called “Terraza.”

Update on Waterfront

As discussed in a previous blog, mostly white people live by the waterfront where the homes are nicer. They have big houses, along with really nice condominiums. I have some pictures that I can upload into my blog of the scenery.

As I was in Perth Amboy a few weeks ago, I asked a few of the Saint Michael’s church members about some issues within the Latin community of this city. Here is a summary of their responses.

Schools

When I asked about the education of the Hispanic children, I was told that the schools are becoming too overpopulated with Hispanic students. However, the city discussed building a new school for some time now and has yet to even build it. They feel that in the future some of the children will not be able to enroll in school because of the overpopulation. This will increase taxes in the city for them, especially since the taxes are already high.

Taxes

One of the main issues in Perth Amboy involves taxes. Taxes are high all the time and also rent payments for apartments. If you want to sell your house and put it on the market, the cost for the house will be low. They feel like with prices going up for everything, they cannot pay for much, including the bills for their own homes.

Jobs

As for jobs, there are none available. Perth Amboy put agencies around the city in order for people, mainly Latinos, to find jobs. The problem is when people go to these agencies; they don’t ever have any jobs available. Factories around the city pay these agencies to hire workers to work for their factories, but the agencies pay the workers less than what they are supposed to earn.

Churches

While I drove around Perth Amboy, I saw churches on pretty much every corner. The churches are very diverse. Some of the churches I seen were first bapist churches, second Baptist churches, Hispanic churches, and African churches. The Saint Michael’s church where I got information from some of the members is a Catholic Church. It celebrates different masses are different times for different ethnicities. When I was at the church, the mass for the Hispanics was in service. The Catholic Churches are having their own financial problems also. The city said they are going to combine the seven catholic churches because they receive no money.

The Perth Amboy Community Partnership for Youth (PACPY)

The Perth Amboy Community Partnership for Youth

            The Perth Amboy Community Partnership for the Youth, also known as PACPY, is an intervention for the youth in the Latin community. It was created in 1986 by a university medical school called the UMDNJ- Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Department of Environmental and community Medicine. Members of this organization included people from Latino parents and youth to school personnel, health service providers, representatives from church and other organizations, and more. The intervention is grounded in the principles of community empowerment and participatory education. The idea if this program is designed to help these children to stay away from drugs and alcohol. It also gives the people who created this intervention a better advantage at understanding what it is in society that influences the young children to actively use these drugs and other substances.

            In 1986, Latinos made up 41% of Perth Amboy’s population and 84% attended schools. However, they still had little power to voice their opinions in their own city when it came to decision making in the community of for school boards. At this time, there was only one Latino representative elected when the partnership first began. Residents of Perth Amboy, along with parents and professionals met to discuss the issues faced within the Latino community between the adults and the youth. They soon formed their own program called “La Cooperativa.”

            “La Cooperativa” had three main goals in their program. The first one was for the partnership to provide support for community action to modify the total environment and strengthen resources for healthy living. The second goal was for the partnership works to reinforce and expand social networks and social supports within the community. The final goal of this program was that the PACPY would work to develop the material resources available to the community. They had two particular ways to obtain resources: the first way was through outsiders, such as volunteers, and the second by working with already existing community services in order to be more accessible. So in the end, The Department of Recreation, The Department of Labor, and other departments that lie within the city, have become more active in making efforts to expand services for Latinos.