The history of Hispanics and Latinos in Baltimore dates back to the mid-20th century. The Hispanic and Latino community of Baltimore is the fastest growing ethnic group in the city. There is a significant Hispanic/Latino presence in many Southeast Baltimore neighborhoods, particularly Highlandtown, Upper Fell's Point, and Greektown. Overall Baltimore has a small but growing Hispanic population, primarily in the Southeast portion of the area from Fells Point to Dundalk.
In 1920, 322 foreign-born White people in Baltimore spoke the Spanish language as their mother tongue. [1]
In the 1930 United States Census, there were fewer than 1,000 foreign-born Latinos in Baltimore. [2]
In the 1960 United States Census, Baltimore was home to 429 people born in Puerto Rico and 214 people born in Mexico. [3]
As of the 2000 Census, the Spanish language was spoken at home by 17,805 people in Baltimore. [4] In the same year, 10,193 Latin American-born immigrants lived in Baltimore, comprising 34.4% of all foreign-born residents of the city. This made Latin America the largest region of origin for immigrants. [5]
In 2000 Latinos constituted 1.7% of the population and by 2009 Latinos had increased to 3% of the population. [6] As of 2010, Latinos are 4.2% of Baltimore. [7] [ failed verification ] At 123,029 Latinos as of 2010, Baltimore has the 56th largest Latino metropolitan population in the United States. [8]
As of 2011, the Spanish language (including Spanish Creole) was the most commonly spoken language in Baltimore among those who spoke English "less than very well". Additionally, 19,708 Latin Americans immigrants lived in Baltimore, making Latin America the largest region of origin for immigrants. [9]
Mexican Americans are the largest Latino group in the city. Mexicans make up slightly over a quarter (26%) of Baltimore's Hispanic population, forming a slight plurality over other Hispanics. There are also sizable populations of Puerto Ricans, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Dominicans.
Baltimore has a small Roma community, many of whom are Gitanos who immigrated from Spain. The Spanish Roma began immigrating to Baltimore in the late 1800s and early 1900s. [10]
| Largest Hispanic/Latino groups (2010) [7] [ failed verification ] [11] [12] | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Total Population | 620,961 | 100.0% |
| All Hispanics/Latinos | 25,960 | 4.2% |
 Mexican | 7,855 | 1.3% |
 Puerto Rican | 3,137 | 0.6% |
 Cuban | 824 | 0.1% |
 Dominican (Dominican Republic) | 1,111 | 0.2% |
| Central American (excludes Mexican) | 6,921 | 1.1% |
 Costa Rican | 86 | 0.0% |
 Guatemalan | 1,246 | 0.2% |
 Honduran | 2,796 | 0.5% |
 Nicaraguan | 101 | 0.0% |
 Panamanian | 269 | 0.0% |
 Salvadoran | 2,796 | 0.5% |
| Other Central American | 57 | 0.0% |
| South American | 2,554 | 0.4% |
 Argentinean | 276 | 0.0% |
 Bolivian | 80 | 0.0% |
 Chilean | 111 | 0.0% |
 Colombian | 492 | 0.1% |
 Ecuadorian | 755 | 0.1% |
 Paraguayan | 24 | 0.0% |
 Peruvian | 537 | 0.1% |
 Uruguayan | 59 | 0.0% |
 Venezuelan | 195 | 0.0% |
| Other South American | 25 | 0.0% |
| Other Hispanic or Latino | 3,558 | 0.6% |
 Spaniard | 413 | 0.1% |
| Spanish | 511 | 0.1% |
| Spanish American | 20 | 0.0% |
| All other Hispanic or Latino | 2,614 | 0.4% |
In the early 18th century, a handful of Sephardi Spanish and Portuguese Jews settled in Baltimore. The Jewish community of Baltimore was largely composed of Ashkenazi German Jews, so the Spanish and Portuguese Jews were a small minority that was unable to form a cohesive community. [13] An abortive attempt was made in 1856–59 to hold services according to the liturgy of the Sephardim, of which Solomon Nunes Carvalho was the chief promoter. The congregation was regularly organized in 1857, under the name "Beth Israel", with Jacob M. De Solla as minister. Many of the early Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Baltimore were unwilling to identify themselves with recent German-Jewish immigrants and regarded themselves as aristocratic Sephardim rather than as poor Ashkenazim, but nonetheless did assist both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews living in poverty. The Sephardi community in Baltimore was also active in the fight against antisemitic disabilities and helped to promote Maryland's "Jew Bill" that extended equal rights protections to Jewish Marylanders. [14]
During the 1920s many Spanish Americans settled in Highlandtown, alongside many Greek Americans. [15]
The first Latino immigrants to the city began arriving in the 1960s. Middle-class professionals were the first to immigrate, largely Central Americans and anti-Castro Cubans. They were followed by middle-class immigrants from Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and Puerto Rico. [16]
1980 saw a second wave of Cuban immigration. Most were outcasts from Cuba, mainly poor and uneducated and many being former prisoners. During the mid-1980s, many Guatemalans and Salvadorans fled to Baltimore in order to escape the Guatemalan and Salvadoran civil wars. [16]
As of 2012, city officials has been encouraging Latinos to immigrate to the city in order to stop or reverse Baltimore's population decline. In order to woo Latinos to the city, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had prohibited police and social agencies from asking people about their immigration status. Rawlings-Blake has ordered the creation of a number of outreach programs for Latinos, including city-sponsored classes given in the Spanish language. [17] [18]
The growing Latino community in Upper Fell's Point is sometimes called Spanish Town. [19] [20] This Spanishtown is found on Broadway Street and is home to a Dominican salon and a Salvadoran supermarket, as well as Guatemalan, Mexican, and Peruvian restaurants [6]
In nearby Greektown, the Latino population is increasing rapidly as the Greek population decreases. [21] [22] Latinos have also settled in Highlandtown. [23]
Baltimore has a relatively small, yet diverse Hispanic population. Most of Baltimore's Hispanic population is in the Southeast section of the city, in areas around Patterson Park and north of Eastern Avenue, especially Highlandtown. Significant Hispanic presence can be seen going in a southeast-ward direction towards Dundalk. Hispanics are starting to act as a medium creating a diverse community wedged between the predominantly black community north of Orleans Street and the predominantly non-Hispanic white community south of Eastern Avenue.
Another noticeable pattern is that Central American Hispanics such as Salvadorans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans, majority of whom are recent immigrants, are more concentrated in inner Southeast neighborhoods west of Linwood Avenue towards Downtown Baltimore, including Upper Fell's Point and Butchers Hill, and SW neighborhoods like Lakewood and Brooklyn. Caribbean Hispanics such as Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, some of whom come from other states like New York and New Jersey, are mostly concentrated in outer Southeast neighborhoods east of Haven Street towards southeastern Baltimore County, including Greektown and Joseph Lee. Mexicans are the most widespread in Southeast Baltimore. Highlandtown, unlike other Baltimore neighborhoods, is known for its diverse mix of Hispanic groups.
LatinoFest is a yearly celebration of the cultures of Central and South America held in Patterson Park. The festival includes arts and crafts, dancing, and traditional folk music. [24]
In East Baltimore there exists a Peruvian-American chapter of the Brotherhood of the Lord of Miracles. The organization holds an annual procession which honors the Lord of Miracles, a painting of Jesus Christ from Lima, Peru. This image is venerated by Peru's Roman Catholics. [25]
While other cities in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast have thriving Spanish-language media, Baltimore has lagged behind. However, a few media outlets do exist. Latin Opinion/Opinion Latina is a biweekly newspaper written in English and Spanish that has been published since 2004. The newspaper was the first Spanish-language publication in Baltimore. [26] WLZL is the first FM Spanish-language radio station in the city. [27]
Due to a lack of support for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Latinos in Baltimore, an organization called IRIS (Individuality, Respect, Integrity, and Sexuality) was created in 2016 to cater to the LGBT Latino community of Baltimore. Previous programs directed at LGBT Latinos have come and gone, but IRIS is designed to be more permanent. While most LGBT services in Baltimore are in the gayborhood of Mount Vernon, the majority of Baltimore's LGBT Latinos live in Highlandtown alongside their heterosexual Latino peers. In addition to the problem of location, LGBT Latinos face intersectional barriers to access and equality, including immigration status, language fluency, and cultural acceptance. [28] [29]
In 2019, the Baltimore officials approved using funds to create a Latino community center on Pulaski Highway in East Baltimore. The immigrant rights organization CASA de Maryland is helping renovate the dilapidated Belnord Theater and will use the space to host a legal clinic, educational and after-school programs, and laboratories for teaching construction and medical skills. [30]
Health disparities exist between the Latino and non-Latino populations. Latinos are twice as likely as non-Latinos to say that they have poor or fair health. They often do not have access to medical care and fewer mothers receive prenatal care. Due to lack of coverage, many Latinos rely on community clinics. The Highlandtown Community Health Center has a bilingual staff and provides preventative care and treatment to the Latino community. [31]
Some Latinos distrust the police. Because of this, some will not turn to the police to report crimes they have witnessed, including alleged anti-Latino hate crimes. A common reason for not reporting crimes is fear of deportation or deportation of family. [32]
The population of Puerto Rico has been shaped by native American settlement, European colonization especially under the Spanish Empire, slavery and economic migration. Demographic features of the population of Puerto Rico include population density, ethnicity, education of the populace, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Spanish is the second most spoken language in the United States. Over 42 million people aged five or older speak Spanish at home. Spanish is also the most learned language other than English, with about 8 million students. Estimates count up to 57 million native speakers, heritage language speakers, and second-language speakers. There is an Academy of the Spanish Language located in the United States as well.
Hispanic and Latino Americans are Americans of full or partial Spanish and/or Latin American background, culture, or family origin. These demographics include all Americans who identify as Hispanic or Latino regardless of race. As of 2020, the Census Bureau estimated that there were almost 65.3 million Hispanics and Latinos living in the United States and its territories.
At the 2010 census, there were 1,526,006 people, 590,071 households, and 352,272 families residing in the consolidated city-county of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The population density was 4,337.3 people/km2. There were 661,958 housing units at an average density of 1,891.9 units/km2.
Greektown is a neighborhood located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
Highlandtown is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, United States.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2023, New York was the fourth largest state in population after California, Texas, and Florida, with a population of 19,571,216, a decrease of over 600,000 people, or −3.1%, since the 2020 census. The population change between 2000–2006 includes a natural increase of 601,779 people and a decrease due to net migration of 422,481 people out of the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 820,388 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of about 800,213.
Salvadoran Americans are Americans of full or partial Salvadoran descent. As of 2021, there are 2,473,947 Salvadoran Americans in the United States, the third-largest Hispanic community by nation of ancestry. According to the Census Bureau, in 2021 Salvadorans made up 4.0% of the total Hispanic population in the United States.
Hispanic and Latin American Australians refers to Australians who are of Hispanic, and/or Latin American origin irrespective of their ancestral backgrounds, and their descendants. Brazilian Australians make up the largest proportion of Hispanic and/or Latin American Australians, followed by Chilean Australians and Salvadoran Australians. Most Hispanic and Latin American Australians speak English but many continue to use Spanish or Portuguese as well.
The District of Columbia is a federal district with an ethnically diverse population. In 2020, the District had a population of 689,545 people, with a resident density of 11,515 people per square mile.
The demographics of Hispanic and Latino Americans depict a population that is the second-largest ethnic group in the United States, 62 million people or 18.7% of the national population.
Upper Fells Point, also known as "Fells Prospect," is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Located north of Fells Point, originally the neighborhood was home to Baltimore's dock workers. By the 1880s canneries and factories provided employment to new immigrants, including Irish, Italians and Poles. In the early 1900s these new Americans were joined by Jews, Lithuanians and Greeks. Today its tidy brick rowhouses and tree-lined streets are home to both old-timers and young urban professionals. It is also the heart of Baltimore's growing Latino community and is sometimes called "Spanish Town". Although most Hispanics in the neighborhood are Mexicans, there are significant populations of Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans, Hondurans, Dominicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, and Cubans, as well as many others.
The history of Greeks in Baltimore dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Baltimore is home to one of the largest Greek American communities in the United States. The community is centered in the Greektown and Highlandtown neighborhoods of East Baltimore.
There have been a variety of ethnic groups in Baltimore, Maryland and its surrounding area for 12,000 years. Prior to European colonization, various Native American nations have lived in the Baltimore area for nearly 3 millennia, with the earliest known Native inhabitants dating to the 10th millennium BCE. Following Baltimore's foundation as a subdivision of the Province of Maryland by British colonial authorities in 1661, the city became home to numerous European settlers and immigrants and their African slaves. Since the first English settlers arrived, substantial immigration from all over Europe, the presence of a deeply rooted community of free black people that was the largest in the pre-Civil War United States, out-migration of African-Americans from the Deep South, out-migration of White Southerners from Appalachia, out-migration of Native Americans from the Southeast such as the Lumbee and the Cherokee, and new waves of more recent immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa have added layers of complexity to the workforce and culture of Baltimore, as well as the religious and ethnic fabric of the city. Baltimore's culture has been described as "the blending of Southern culture and [African-American] migration, Northern industry, and the influx of European immigrants—first mixing at the port and its neighborhoods...Baltimore’s character, it’s uniqueness, the dialect, all of it, is a kind of amalgamation of these very different things coming together—with a little Appalachia thrown in...It’s all threaded through these neighborhoods", according to the American studies academic Mary Rizzo.
Hispanic and Latino Floridians are residents of the state of Florida who are of Hispanic or Latino ancestry. The statistics in the PEW report show that the justification of the definition of “Hispanic” is based on Spanish language in Latin America or if a person is from Spain, while Latino is based on Latin American origin disregarding people from Brazil or Portugal. The same study presented the findings 27% preferred to identify as “Hispanic” while 18% preferred the term “Latino”. The Census Bureau has changed its framed terminology towards the question since it was first introduced in 1930 as a “Mexican Race” option and it is still changing to this day to become more inclusive and specific to each person who identifies as Hispanic and/or Latino. Latinos in Florida accounted for 5.3 million of the US Latino population. At around 28.5% of the population as of 2017, Cubans are the largest Latino group in Florida. Puerto Ricans are one of the fastest growing Latino groups in Florida, with one out of every five Latinos in the state being of Puerto Rican origin. Cubans and Puerto Ricans together make up almost half of Florida's Latino population. Other sizable Latino groups include South Americans (17.9%), Mexicans (13.5%), Central Americans (10.7%), and Dominicans (4.8%); all other Latinos make up 3.6% in total.
The Latin American diaspora refers to the dispersion of Latin Americans out of their homelands in Latin America and the communities subsequently established by them across the world.
As of 2016, the Hispanic and Latino community made up nine percent of Washington, D.C.'s population, and 44.9 percent of non-English-speaking households spoke Spanish. The district’s Latino population has been increasing steadily since the 1980s as its total population has declined. More immigrants from Latin American countries have settled in the district, and there has been an increase in births to Latina mothers compared to other racial and ethnic groups. Latinos living in D.C. are more likely to be immigrants than non-Latinos, and Latino immigrants in the district are predominantly from El Salvador, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. D.C. Latino households are more likely to consist of a married couple than non-Latino households, and include more children.
The Hispanic population in Houston is increasing as more immigrants from Latin American countries come to work in the area. As of 2006 the city has the third-largest Hispanic population in the United States. As of 2011, the city is 44% Hispanic. As of 2011, of the city's U.S. citizens that are Hispanic, half are age 18 or older, and are therefore at the age range eligible to vote. As of 2011 many Hispanics in Houston are not U.S. citizens, especially those living in Gulfton and Spring Branch, and are therefore ineligible to vote in elections. As a result, Hispanics have proportionally less representation in the municipal government than other ethnic groups. As of April 2011 two of the Houston City Council members are Hispanic, making up 18% of the council.
The history of White Americans in Baltimore dates back to the 17th century when the first white European colonists came to what is now Maryland and established the Province of Maryland on what was then Native American land. White Americans in Baltimore are Baltimoreans "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa." Majority white for most of its history, Baltimore no longer had a white majority by the 1970s. As of the 2010 census, white Americans are a minority population of Baltimore at 29.6% of the population. White Americans have played a substantial impact on the culture, dialect, ethnic heritage, history, politics, and music of the city. Since the earliest English settlers arrived on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore's white population has been sustained by substantial immigration from all over Europe, particularly Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Southern Europe, as well as a large out-migration of White Southerners from Appalachia. Numerous white immigrants from Europe and the European diaspora have immigrated to Baltimore from the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, France, Canada, and other countries, particularly during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Smaller numbers of white people have immigrated from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, North Africa, and other non-European regions. Baltimore also has a prominent population of white Jews of European descent, mostly with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. There is a smaller population of white Middle Easterners and white North Africans, most of whom are Arab, Persian, Israeli, or Turkish. The distribution of White Americans in Central and Southeast Baltimore is sometimes called "The White L", while the distribution of African Americans in East and West Baltimore is called "The Black Butterfly."
The city of Baltimore, Maryland includes a large and growing Caribbean-American population. The Caribbean-American community is centered in West Baltimore. The largest non-Hispanic Caribbean populations in Baltimore are Jamaicans, Trinidadians and Tobagonians, and Haitians. Baltimore also has significant Hispanic populations from the Spanish West Indies, particularly Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Cubans. Northwest Baltimore is the center of the West Indian population of Baltimore, while Caribbean Hispanics in the city tend to live among other Latinos in neighborhoods such as Greektown, Upper Fell's Point, and Highlandtown. Jamaicans and Trinidadians are the first and second largest West Indian groups in the city, respectively. The neighborhoods of Park Heights and Pimlico in northwest Baltimore are home to large West Indian populations, particularly Jamaican-Americans.
1920 Baltimore Spanish.
Baltimore Latino.
