Latino Political Succession and Incorporation

Lawrence, Massachusetts, is home to the largest Hispanic ¹ community of any city in the state (at 59.7 percent of total population) and one of the largest on the East Coast. It has 10 percent of the Commonwealth's 428,729 Latinos. At the same time it is the poorest city in the state and the twenty-third poorest in the country. It has very high rates of poverty, crime, and arson on a per capita basis (Office of Planning 1994, 2). What has linked the population size and poverty characteristics has been the powerlessness of the Hispanic community over the public and private institutions that control the policy agendas of the city.