Census: Latino Boom in Massachusetts

Hugo Balta

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Hispanics-Latinos make up 62.1 million of the U.S. population, a 23-percent increase from 2010 to 2020, the Census Bureau announced this month.. 

The group accounted for more than 50-percent of the country’s growth, rising to nearly 20-percent of the population.

In Massachusetts, the percentage of the population identifying as Hispanic or Latino grew from 9.6-percent (627,000 people) to 12.6-percent (887,000).

Lawrence, Andover, Methuen and Haverhill all saw a double-digit percent increase to their populations driven by Hispanics-Latinos and Asian people. In Lawrence, Hispanics-Latinos make up 82-percent of the city’s population up from 74-percent in 2010.

Methuen’s Hispanic-Latino population grew by 11-percent. In Andover, the share of Hispanic-Latino residents grew to 13-percent of the population.

More than 28-percent of the Everett’s population now identifies as Hispanic-Latino, up from 21-percent a decade ago.

In Lynn, the Hispanic-Latino population grew by 54-percent in the past 10 years.

“A lot of what’s happening is new immigrants coming from Asian and Latin American countries are helping revitalize our region and state,” said Luc Schuster, director of Boston Indicators, a research project for the Boston Foundation in an interview with The Boston Globe. “We really would see a contracting local economy if we hadn’t continued to be welcoming to new immigrant communities.”

The total population for Massachusetts increased from more than 6.5 million in 2010 to just over 7 million, making it the 15th most populous state in the nation and ensuring it retains all nine of its existing seats in the U.S. House.

The shifting racial makeup of the state could factor heavily into redistricting decisions that lawmakers will make in the coming months as they embark on the once-every-decade process of redrawing state legislative, congressional and Governor’s Council boundaries.


Publisher’s Note: The U.S. Census helps identify the changing population of the state and how federal funds are used, and determines government representation.

MALN commits to producing stories analyzing the social, economic a d political impact of the Census on the Hispanic-Latino community.

This story is an aggregate from the reporting of The Eagle Tribune, NBC Boston, NBC Latino, and The Boston Globe.

Cover photo credit: Festival Betances, 2018.