14 Worcester Business Journal | November 12, 2018 | wbjournal.com
The Research Bureau
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As time went on, Worcester's foreign-born
population diversified in terms of countries of
origin. While the Irish and Canadian populations
remained dominant up until recently, other
trends began to emerge. Large numbers of
Swedish immigrants were recorded in the late
1800s, followed by waves of Russian and Eastern
European migration. The Italian foreign-born
population steadily rose until the 1970s, and by
2010 the top countries of origin for immigrants to
Worcester were Brazil, Vietnam, Ghana, the
Dominican Republic, and Albania—countries
spread across multiple continents, representing
populations previously unseen in the city. And in
contrast to the early days of one or two countries
making up the bulk of the immigrant population,
no country supplied more than 10 percent of the
city's foreign-born population.
While Worcester's foreign-born population has
represented a variety of countries for a long time,
substantial immigration from countries outside
Europe is a relatively new phenomenon. As
Source: Decennial Censuses of the United States
