The NJ PBS digital documentary series “21” examines a simple question: Does where you live in the state affect how you live? The “21” series profiles one person in each of New Jersey’s 21 counties and looks at the social determinants that affect that person’s life.
The latest film profiles Celmira Cordero, a New Brunswick resident. An immigrant from Peru, Cordero is channeling her own life experience through her work with the New Brunswick Tomorrow organization’s Esperanza Neighborhood Project to help people in her local community, especially undocumented families, maneuver the housing system and understand tenant rights.
In the film she shares that she moved to the United States in 2005 and would eventually attend Middlesex County College, working and studying part-time while raising a family. She experienced first-hand the difficulties those in the Spanish-speaking community have in finding and keeping housing, communicating with landlords and knowing they have basic tenant rights when problems arise.
“In this community, 99% of the people are Spanish speakers and they don’t know how to understand the tenant’s law,” Cordero says of the Esperanza section of New Brunswick in the film. “New Brunswick Tomorrow works with a community … giving education to the tenants regarding the laws and the ordinance.”
She also reflects on why she chooses to stay in New Brunswick, despite the housing challenges.
“Living in New Brunswick affects me in a positive way,” she says in the film. “I have learned to live in this country, I have learned to love this country and it doesn’t matter where you live, nor perhaps the circumstances, but if you have the strength to fight and achieve the goal you have planned or the reason why you came to this country, then it’s satisfying for you and your whole family.”
And as an advocate for New Brunswick Tomorrow’s Esperanza project, Cordero reminds us “Esperanza” means hope.
