This piece is part of an Annenberg News 21 collaboration with The Guardian examining the Latino vote in the 2012 presidential election. 

In the economically ravaged rustbelt city of Reading, Pa., ranked as the poorest metropolitan area in America, the majority Latino population is suffering from the double blow of vanishing jobs and poor education. Almost half of the 87,000 residents—58 percent of whom are Latino—are living below the federal poverty line.

"Reading is the face of America," said community leader and former city councilman Angel Figueroa, the first Latino elected to the council. "And if we can fix Reading as a mid-sized city we can fix many mid-sized cities in the country."

In an election year, Reading could easily be the proving grounds for Democrats or Republicans seeking to sell bold ideas for turning around the economy. But neither major party has invested much energy on the town's Hispanic community.

Two decades before the current economic crash, Latinos from New York and other north-eastern cities came to Reading, lured by a steady job market. Reading's history is infused with the stories of Latino immigrants from Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic who, since the early twentieth century, have moved into the city to work the mushroom fields and manufacturing jobs.

"We came here for a better life for our kids," Luis Garriga, a recent Puerto Rican implant from New York said.

Many Latinos who made Reading their home, came for the same reasons as Garriga. But as manufacturing plants have withered and closed across the rust belt, thousands of jobs have vanished. Work once abundant in the mushroom fields, steel mills, textile plants and auto parts factories and, more recently, hi-tech and even chocolate factories, is now hard to find.

Read the full story here.