page_title: Puerto Ricans in Holyoke
section_title: Enclaves
hierarchical_section_title: Puerto Ricans in Holyoke / Enclaves
context_page_description: As of the 2010 census, Holyoke, Massachusetts had the largest Puerto Rican population, per capita, of any city in the United States outside Puerto Rico proper, with 44.7% or 17,826 residents being of Puerto Rican heritage, comprising 92.4% of all Latinos in the community. From a combination of farming programs instituted by the US Department of Labor after World War II, and the housing and mills that characterized Holyoke prior to deindustrialization, Puerto Ricans began settling in the city in the mid-1950s, with many arriving during the wave of Puerto Rican immigration to the Northeastern United States in the 1980s. A combination of white flight as former generations of mill workers left the city, and a sustained influx of migrants in subsequent generations transformed the demographic from a minority of about 13% of the population in 1980, to the largest single demographic by ancestry in a span of three decades.
context_section_description: While there is a Puerto Rican demographic throughout all of Holyoke today, as of 2018 the neighborhoods of South Holyoke, The Flats, and Churchill were among those areas with the largest Puerto Rican populations proportionally, all having more than 75% residents of Puerto Rican heritage, with 83.5% of all South Holyoke's residents being of Puerto Rican heritage. Despite efforts to create more equitable housing from a variety of nonprofit groups, as of 2018, South Holyoke had the highest percentage of renter-occupied housing in any neighborhood outside of Boston, with an average of 1.5% owner-occupied households across the neighborhood's two census block groups.
  According to the Census's 2012-2016 American Community Survey, Spanish is spoken among a large segment of the population but, as a language spoken at home, comprised a fraction of households. The highest proportion of Spanish or Spanish Creole speaking households was about 54.2% in a block group in one section of Churchill. In South Holyoke about 45% of households speak Spanish at home, while no block group in The Flats neighborhood exceeded 25%.
  As of 2018, ongoing efforts have been put forward to formally create a cultural district along the Main Street areas of South Holyoke and the Flats, in what would be a first for the city. Today many events are held by the community, including by its cultural centers at Nueva Esperanza and Nuestras Raices, with work going towards bringing an official state designation to support programs that encourage cultural exchange, tourism, and commerce. Not unlike in the Greater New York area, Holyoke and its surrounding cities of Springfield and Chicopee, are home to a number of self-identified bodegas, small independent convenience stores often having delis or produce. In one 2008 survey it was found South Holyoke alone was home to at least 18 such stores.
caption: A map of Holyoke, Springfield, and Pioneer Valley block groups by percent Spanish speaking households in 2016 where English is not a household language; the greatest proportion of the population found in Holyoke and the North End of Springfield 
  Legend   0.325–0.542   0.25–0.325   0.175–0.25   0.10–0.175   0.05–0.10   0.018–0.05   0