Massachusetts’ Chinese immigrant population is growing and becoming increasingly suburban, creating ethnic
Massachusetts’ Chinese immigrant population is growing and becoming increasingly suburban, creating ethnic clusters around the region, according to one expert.
On May 19, urban planner Tunney F. Lee addressed recently released census data and what they show about immigration trends at the annual meeting of the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. The center, which serves Chinese Americans from across the region, aims to expand to meet the growing needs of that group.
Lee said that while Massachusetts’ population grew by 3 percent from 2000-2010, its white population actually shrank by 4 percent, making the state increasingly ethnically diverse. Chinese Americans now number almost 123,000 in the state, according to census analysis from the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston, up 46 percent from 2000.
Immigrants from India make up the fastest-growing Asian subgroup in the state, with a 76 percent increase in the past decade. Lee said that growth was harder to see because the Indian immigrants are more likely to settle in the suburbs rather than urban areas.
Lee discussed the history of immigration to the region, explaining that Asian immigrants were rare in Massachusetts before the 1960s, and the few who settled in the state were mostly Chinese immigrants centered around Boston’s Chinatown.
But the federal Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated quotas that had restricted immigration based on existing proportions of a nationality in the population. After that, preference was based on the skills and family relationships of those applying to immigrate.
That policy change had a number of effects, Lee said. Hispanic immigrants became the largest ethnic group entering the country after the change, but it also marked the beginning of an influx of Indians and Koreans, most of whom were educated professionals. And at the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees sought homes in this country, most of whom had little education.
Lee, the former head of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and a major force in Chinatown’s development, said most Asian immigrants, including Chinese, come in two disparate groups, one that is significantly less educated than the general population and another that is significantly more educated. But not all Asian immigrant groups fit this pattern, so that when Asian immigrants are looked at as one bloc, differences between groups become lost.
“The Chinese pretty much approximate the general Asian population,” Lee said. “Asian Indians, on the other hand, have a very high educational attainment, whereas the Cambodians are the opposite. So when we put all the composites together, it hides the picture that there are very different groups with very different incomes and therefore very different rates of growth.”
Among Chinese-American settlements in the US, Lee said researcher Tom Chung has identified three distinct types. The first is the immigrant enclave, which Chinatown typifies. The second is the one-step-up neighborhood, “the working class group that is saving enough money to buy a house and go in the suburbs,” Lee said. The third is the suburban cluster, where a group of educated, successful Chinese Americans settles in an affluent suburb.
The Chinese-American population has become increasingly suburban over time, with many leaving Boston to settle in nearby towns or even bypassing Boston entirely and settling outside the city upon their arrival. Some of the largest local populations of Chinese Americans are in Quincy, which has seen an almost 60 percent increase; Malden, which has seen an approximately 50 percent increase; and Acton, where the population has increased by 151 percent.
Lee said early groups of immigrants settling in the area had faced racism, but as Asian populations have become larger, they have become more accepted by other ethnic groups. He believes the current trends are likely to continue.
“If the experiences in other cities are any test, my guess is that Quincy will become increasingly Chinese, and Malden as well,” Lee said. He said he expected Chinatown to remain the regional center for the wider Chinese-American community, but that the population wouldn’t change much. “There’s no place for Chinatown to grow,” he said.
Elaine Ng, executive director of the neighborhood center, said the expansion of the local Chinese-American population in the suburbs made it necessary for the center to expand its mission.
“BCNC is historically rooted in Chinatown, and our intention is to stay rooted in Chinatown,” she said. “But the truth of the demographics is that in our programs, we saw from 2004 and 2005 almost a 300 percent increase in the number of people that we’re serving coming from Quincy.”
Ng said the center would be expanding to offer services in Quincy, making it easier for residents there to access services while also freeing up resources in Boston to better serve residents in the city. And to support the increasing number of immigrant families, the organization will work to integrate the range of services it offers to those in all stages of life.
“Our intention over the next three years is to really integrate those services better,” Ng said, “so that we’re not just working on individual outcomes and helping the individual student succeed in school or helping the individual adult learn English. What we’re going to do is look at the entire family, so that the adults in the family get the support they need so they can better support their children to have better economic outcomes in the future.”