Birchat Kedir of Ethiopia, Olivia Meyerhoffer of France, and Mariama Cire Sylla of Guinea (from left) at an immigration rally on the Boston Common during the 21st annual Immigrants’ Day at the Massachusetts State House on April 5, 2017.(Craig F. Walker/Staff Photo)
The research shows that between 2000 and 2016 the Asian-American population growth has been fastest in the region’s smaller, suburban municipalities.
In Quincy, the change has been profound. For decades, the report said, the city struggled to revitalize its once vibrant downtown amid the rise of suburban malls nearby.
“But as city planners consistently looked to a future of modern buildings and redesigned roadways, Asian-Americans seized the moment,” the report said.
Without waiting on those long-planned improvements, they moved in, bought homes, and opened businesses, “transforming Quincy in ways unimagined by local policy makers,” the researchers said.
The Asian-American population was 6 percent of Quincy’s population in 1990; today it is 28 percent, the researchers said.
The Latino community in Massachusetts has also surged. Four decades ago, Latinos in the state came mostly from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. But between the mid-1980s and 1990s, the researchers said, large numbers of immigrants and refugees fleeing violence and strife in Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala moved in.
In Waltham, long a destination for international migrants, Guatemalans have become the largest group of foreign-born residents, and represent 30 percent of that city’s Latino population, the researchers said.
By being close to some of the wealthiest towns in the area, the Guatemalans have found job opportunities in landscaping, construction, snowplowing, and domestic work. But while Latinos like the Guatemalans are doing better in those areas, the report suggests that Guatemalans in Waltham face barriers accessing crucial services in the city.
It pointed to a need for more Spanish-speaking services in the city to better help immigrant families, including those who still live in fear of deportation. High rents and housing costs also leave many vulnerable to landlords who take advantage of the new immigrants, the researchers said.
The report also tackled demographic changes in the region’s black community.
Greater Boston’s black population expanded by about 125,000 people to 340,318 from 1990 to 2016, the report said. But of the new black residents in the area, only 13,150 live in Boston proper.
More often than not, they live in areas that are segregated, underresourced, and otherwise marginalized. Many are renters, making them targets of gentrification and displacement, the report said.
But it’s different in Brockton, where the black population, including a large share of people from Africa, Cape Verde, and Haiti, more than tripled. Brockton is now 27 percent foreign born, and 41 percent of its black residents are foreign born. Rising housing costs in Boston have caused many blacks to turn to Brockton.
One in five home loans made to blacks in Massachusetts went to homebuyers in Brockton. This is almost twice the number of loans that went to blacks in Boston, the researchers said.
Meghan E. Irons, Globe Staff
Meghan E. Irons can be reached at meghan.irons@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @meghanirons.
Full report: 2019 Changing Faces of Greater Boston