A Patchwork Quilt of People

Over the city’s long history, people from around the world have arrived here to become new Bostonians, sometimes by choice and other times against their will. From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, Europeans forcibly brought Africans to the city in chains. Later arrivals to Boston came seeking jobs, education, or safety for their families in the growing city. Sometimes the city welcomed new arrivals, while during other periods formal and informal barriers created invisible lines on the map that constrained who could come to Boston and where they could live. As the city’s population has changed over time, claims on space and identity have changed as well. While Boston has long been associated with the traditions of its Yankee elite, these groups already made up a minority of residents by the end of the nineteenth century. Immigrant groups often clustered in sections of the city, leading to dozens of distinct cultural geographies. From the vibrant architecture of Chinatown to the music of the Cape Verdean sections of Dorchester and the Spanish-language shopfronts of East Boston, local spaces show the imprints of global migrations. These spaces have never been static, though, as millions of daily interactions in a diverse city produce constant changes in identity and place.