In my last post I started investigating heritage enclaves; that is, the census tracts with the highest percentage of each heritage (or ‘origin’, as the census defines it). Last time it was for White heritages; today let’s look at the Hispanic side of things. The top of the list:
| Heritage | Tract | County | State | Pct | National |
| Mexican | 114.05 | Yuma | Arizona | 96.9% | 10.82% |
| Cuban | 6.1 | Miami-Dade | Florida | 84.4% | 0.68% |
| Puerto Rican | 8115 | Hampden | Massachusetts | 80.6% | 1.69% |
| Dominican | 2509 | Essex | Massachusetts | 65.8% | 0.66% |
The first two are not surprising. Lots of people of Mexican heritage in an Arizona border town? Sure. Cubans in Miami? No doubt. But, Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage in Massachusetts? Yep. In Holyoke, MA (near Springfield), a post-World War II farm labor program was the kickstart for Puerto Rican migration. And up in the northeast corner of the state, the city of Lawrence saw immigrants from the Dominican Republic brought in to work the wool and cotton mills; the mills closed but the immigrants stayed to build a community.
Continuing the list:
| Heritage | Tract | County | State | Pct | National |
| Venezuelan | 90.44 | Miami-Dade | Florida | 56.4% | 0.18% |
| Guatemalan | 1122.04 | Marin | California | 55.4% | 0.5% |
Venezuelan heritage is concentrated in Miami (the top 10 Venezuelan census tracts are all in that city). But people of Guatemalan ancestry are scattered all across the country. San Rafael, California tops the list, but there are enclaves in Texas (Houston), Maryland (just outside of D.C.), Florida (Gainesville), Georgia (outside of Atlanta), Los Angeles (the Westlake community near downtown), and Delaware. And that’s just the tracts with 40% or more Guatemalan heritage; there are dozens more in the 20-40% range. Truly a dispersed heritage.
| Heritage | Tract | County | State | Pct | National |
| Salvadoran | 1111.02 | Suffolk | New York | 41.3% | 0.71% |
Long Island leads the way with many tracts of Salvadoran ancestry. Interestingly, they aren’t centered on a single location. This map shows several pockets, centered around different towns:
| Heritage | Tract | County | State | Pct | National |
| Ecuadorian | 133.04 | Westchester | New York | 37.4% | 0.23% |
This one is a little misleading. Tract 133.04, a neighborhood in Ossining, New York (about 30 miles north of Manhattan) tops the list at 37.4%, but after that the list dominated by tracts in the Corona community, in Queens, which holds the next 16 slots, with densities from 34% to 28%.
| Heritage | Tract | County | State | Pct | National |
| Honduran | 38.08 | Mecklenburg | North Carolina | 28.8% | 0.32% |
| Nicaraguan | 90.2 | Miami-Dade | Florida | 22.6% | 0.12% |
| Colombian | 450 | Morris | New Jersey | 22% | 0.39% |
Honduran enclaves, like Guatemalan, are spread out across several states. The top few tracts are found in North Carolina (Charlotte), Florida (Miami), Maryland (Baltimore), Louisiana (New Orleans), New Jersey (Morristown), and Texas (Houston). Whereas if you live in a Nicaraguan neighborhood, you probably live in Miami: the top 50 enclaves are there. New Jersey’s Colombian hot-spots center on two cities: Dover and Elizabeth. It’s unclear why those places became the focus of Colombian migration, but they did, starting in the 1980s.
Next time: Asian heritage.
Over four decades, I was fortunate to work with first generation immigrants from every continent. Most commonly, they would say something to the effect, “Oh, I had an uncle living in xyz city. That was my first residence in the US.” Family help has traditionally been such a huge boot strap.
Those four decades saw San Diego county grow from probably around a million people to close to four million. Lots of fresh new faces from everywhere!