Perth Amboy

Perth Amboy is an old town, having been founded in 1693. It is one of the most historic towns in NJ, having once been the capitol of East Jersey prior to the Revolutionary War. Perth Amboy has always been a city of immigrants, with wave after wave of different ethnic groups succeeding and supplanting the ones that came before. Now it's the Dominicans who are the newest group. When I was in school there, it was the Puerto Ricans who were the new group. My mom used to talk about how the Eastern Europeans were looked down on by the Irish; my grandmother used to talk about housecleaning for the wealthy German Jewish ladies when she was 14.