I have seen much change as the years pass by. I have lived in Lima most of my life and grew up here. I would saying I know this community very well. I am White and have lived mostly in the same place. I have moved out of the house my parents owned several times, but I always seem to come back to the place I call home, 712 North Cole Street. When I was a child this neighborhood was mostly White. Now as a middle aged adult there are a much more African Americans on the North side of town.
When I was in school there were three middle schools: West, North, and South. This school year they changed things around. Now fifth and sixth grades go to North, seventh and eighth grades go to West, and south is kindergarten to eighth for Science magnet program.
There is one elementary (kindergarten to fourth grade) school is for Arts magnet program. Children are bussed to school if they live farther than a mile and a half away. When I was a child the school did not bus students, with the exception of my sixth grade year when there was a sort of exchange program where Whites were bussed to the schools on the south side and Blacks were bussed to schools on the north side. The reason for this was this to to make the schools more equally diverse.
[...] Factories have shut down and businesses have closed or downsized. Many people I went to high school with went away to college and never came back with exception of visits. I talked to Ray Magnus who is on the city counsel and is running for president of city counsel this election. According to Magnus our city counsel has mostly White members three Blacks and one Asian. It is the same almost everywhere in Lima. White people are the news reporters. [...]
[...] That is forming a whole new race of mixed children to the community. My parents did not approve of this kind of relationship when I was young, but I am grown and my father has passed on, my sister is engaged to a Black man and my mother's opinion has changed. When I was young there were a few Mexicans but most lived on the south side. I do not remember ever seeing Arabs here until I was in my 20s. [...]
[...] I would saying I know this community very well. I am White and have lived mostly in the same place. I have moved out of the house my parents owned several times, but I always seem to come back to the place I call home North Cole Street. When I was a child this neighborhood was mostly White. Now as a middle aged adult there are a much more African Americans on the North side of town. When I was in school there were three middle schools: West, North, and South. [...]
[...] I try to teach tolerance to my children and all of their friends. I have even tried to bring back the idea of the village raising the children by getting involved with my children's friends and talking to their parents so that we may help each other to keep them out of trouble and to teach them that there is more to a person than just the color of his or her skin. References Bureau of the Census. (1983). Retrieved October from census. gov: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1980/tracts- cities/CensusTracts1980-LimaOH.pdf Lima Population and Demographics. (2011). [...]
[...] Lima is a diverse city, but it is segregated. It is not so much segregated by race as it is by class. Those who live in the south side are low income or below poverty while those in the north side are middle or upper class. There are apartment complexes in the north for low income, but they are all well known to everyone here and considered the city's way of trying desegregating the community. The south side and low-income apartments have a large amount of crime and drugs are a big problem all over the city. [...]
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