Climbing the Rainbow: 28 Glimpses of Growing Up in Passaic

For more than 150 years, waves of poor immigrants flow into Passaic, a small city in New Jersey seeking jobs and a new life. The common dream of these hard working people is for their children to become educated and then successful in America. Climbing The Rainbow. And that's exactly what happens. Each generation is educated in the city's school system, then moved on to successful careers throughout our nation. This mobility allows a new flood of even poorer immigrants to take their place. The success process is again renewed. This book contains twenty-eight stories, each written by a person who grew up or worked in the unique City of Passaic at different times during the last ninety years. These authors are representative of the many ethnic, racial and religious groups that live peacefully side-by-side in this unique melting-pot city. Quoting from one of the book chapter authors, Jose Rodriguez who describes his reaction as a seven-year old on his first day in Passaic. "...As I walked into the parking lot on Market Street, I entered a strange new world, exciting and alive with activity, life and color...black, white, brown, yellow and yes, even red. This was not the pigment on the walls of this parking lot but the skin tones of the youth in this piece of the world. That day in 1978 in the wonderful City of Passaic I saw the rainbow that would make up the road of my youth...it was the truest of melting pots."