Changing Faces of Greater Boston, to be released at this symposium, tells the fascinating story of a great region's evolving racial and ethnic diversity. After a decline during the mid-20th century, we're now several decades into a new global wave of immigration, bringing Boston back to its roots as a city of immigrants. These changes have occurred across the Commonwealth, but in Greater Boston these trends are especially pronounced. Among the striking findings from the research: 

• Between 1990 and 2017, every one of Greater Boston's 147 cities and towns saw an increase in the non-white share of its population.
• More than 90 percent of our region's population growth since 1990 has come from new immigrants.

The report unites researchers from Boston Indicators, the research center at the Boston Foundation; the Economic & Public Policy Research team at the UMass Donahue Institute; and directors of the four free-standing research institutes at UMass Boston dedicated to the major communities of color (the Trotter Institute, the Gastón Institute, the Institute for Asian American Studies and the Institute for New England Native American Studies).

This symposium will provide an opportunity to learn more about this rich transformation and to engage in conversations about how best to leverage this evolving diversity in building more broadly shared prosperity for everyone living in our region.

Welcome & Opening Remarks

Paul S. Grogan, President & CEO, The Boston Foundation

Findings from the Report

Luc Schuster, Boston Indicators (Moderator)

Mark Melnik, Economic and Public Policy Research, UMass Donahue Institute

Paul Watanabe, Institute for Asian American Studies, UMB

Rita Kiki Edozie, McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies, UMB

(co-authored with Barbara Lewis,William Monroe Trotter Institute for African American Culture and History, UMB)

J. Cedric Woods, Institute for New England Native American Studies, UMB

Lorna Rivera, Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development & Public Policy, UMB

Trevor Mattos, Boston Indicators

Voices from the Region

Stephen Chan, Vice President of Strategy & Operations,The Boston Foundation (Moderator)

 Chrystal Kornegay, Executive Director, MassHousing

Mark McGovern, Mayor, City of Cambridge

John Jim Peters, Executive Director, Commission on Indian Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Andres Vargas, State Representative, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Lisa Wong, Town Manager, Winchester, Massachusetts