This report provides a descriptive snapshot of selected economic, social, educational, and demographic indicators pertaining to Latinos in the cities of Holyoke, Chicopee, and Easthampton. This report is prepared for the 2010 Statewide Latino Public Policy Conference organized by UMass Boston’s Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy. It is part of a larger series that covers fourteen cities, or clusters of cities, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Each report analyzes data from the 2008 American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The ACS’s smallest geographic area is a Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA) consisting of a minimum census population of 100,000. In the PUMA for these cities, Chicopee accounted for nearly half of its population (49.5%) in the 2000 Census, while Holyoke accounted for 36.1% and Easthampton 14.4%. The majority of the Latino population of this PUMA (76.0%) lived in Holyoke in 2000, while 22.6% lived in Chicopee and 1.3 % lived in Easthampton. Thus, the Latino population in these cities will be referenced as the Holyoke-Chicopee area throughout this report, although the data referenced does include the smaller Latino population in Easthampton as well
