“If you go and look around and look around, you say, ‘Wow, where’s all the Latino population that was in the SW?'” Castillo said, gesturing around him on a sun-drenched afternoon near his restaurant. “But, you know, things changed.”
Jamaica Plain was once home to Boston’s largest Latino community, with most settling in Hyde Square at the northeast end of the neighborhood. As the demographic makeup of the gentrifying neighborhood has changed, efforts to preserve the history and culture of Hyde Square have intensified in recent years, thanks to the advocacy of local business owners, like Chimi, and activists concerned about what the future holds.
In 2016, Hyde Square was officially named Boston’s Latino Quarter after teenagers working with the non-profit group Hyde Square Task Force successfully lobbied the Municipal Council for recognition. Then, in 2018, the state’s Mass Cultural Council made Boston’s Latin Quarter the city’s fourth official cultural district, a designation that comes with modest funding for arts and cultural activities in the community. That same year, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture worked with the Hyde Square Task Force to secure a $100,000 federal grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which will support long-term cultural projects and planning.
“I think it’s important to recognize the history and also recognize from a citywide perspective the contributions that the Latino community has made to the city of Boston and continues to make,” said Celina Rivera, executive director of the Hyde Square Task. Force. “Having this place called Boston’s Latin Quarter, it becomes a symbol — an important recognition of those contributions.”
Stunned by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hyde Square Task Force launched its first major community project this summer, a mural in Mozart Park celebrating the history of Afro-Latino music and dance. Led by Uruguayan artist Roberto Chao, the mural is being funded with a $50,000 grant from the Office of the President of Arts and Culture. On a recent Saturday afternoon, at an event to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, Chao and his co-workers spent hours hand-painting the vibrant mural. The 163-foot-tall mural stretches the length of the fence bordering Mozart Park and features larger-than-life portraits of black and Latino artists such as Fela Kuti, James Brown and Fabiola Mendez.
José C. Massó, III, host of the long-running Afro-Latin music radio show, ¡Con Salsa!, stopped by to watch the mural’s progress. His smiling visage, still partially unfinished, was depicted at the bottom of the mural, holding his characteristic white-brimmed hat. Massó, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, said public art, like Chao’s mural, can serve not only as a source of pride for locals, but as an act of resistance to the pressures of gentrification and redevelopment.
“This is proof that we are here. This is our condition to make sure you can’t throw this away. You can’t paint on it as if we didn’t exist,” said Massó. “This is another way of art that says, ‘we are.’ We are present.”
Latinos began settling in Jamaica Plain in the 1960s, coming from Cuba and Puerto Rico, and later, the Dominican Republic and several Central and South American countries. The arrival of Latinos transformed the neighborhood, especially Hyde Square, where they spearheaded the commercial revitalization of the area, opening bodegas, restaurants, barbershops, and salons. By 1980, according to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, 20 percent of Boston’s Latino population lived in Jamaica Plain, centered primarily on Hyde Square.
Hi-Lo Foods on Center Street, a grocery store that catered to Caribbean and Latin American shoppers, was the social center of the community. El Mundo, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in New England, was published nearby. The historic Blessed Sacrament Church was the crown jewel of the neighborhood and its spiritual heart.
But Jamaica Plain’s Latino population began to decline in the 1990s as high-income professionals began moving into the area. Rents rose and many working-class Latinos were squeezed out. The Archdiocese of Boston closed Blessed Sacrament in 2004. In 2011, Hi-Lo closed and was replaced by a Whole Foods Market. In 2018, El Mundo left for East Boston. The Latino population in Jamaica Plain fell 11 percent between 2000 and 2010, and another five percent between 2010 and 2020.
According to the most recent Census data, less than 22 percent of Jamaica Plain is Latino. In Hyde Square, Latinos represent just over a third of the resident population, census data show, while white residents make up nearly 40 percent.
“This used to be a very large Latino community, and recently, there’s been so much gentrification in Jamaica Plain, many of the Latino families that have lived there historically can no longer afford to live there. [there],” said Lorna Rivera, director of the Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at UMass Boston.
“So this preservation,” she added, “is a critical part of continuing to provide a space that is welcoming to Latinos in Boston.”
Damaris Pimentel, owner of Ultra Beauty Salon at 401 Center Street, has watched the neighborhood evolve over the decades with some ambivalence. Pimentel’s family moved to Jamaica Plain from the Dominican Republic in 1976. She opened her first salon in Hyde Square in 1982, serving a predominantly Latino clientele.
Nowadays, she said, her salon is a multicultural destination, where it’s not unusual to see clients and stylists “from seven different countries. [speaking] maybe five different languages at the same time.”
While the resident Latino population has declined, Pimentel said, Latino-owned businesses like hers have persisted, shaping the neighborhood’s character and identity.
“The Latino business community has stayed and grown and contributed to the enrichment of the culture,” said Pimentel, 68. “[Latinos] from other communities, if they want to feel the heart of Latino culture, they come to Jamaica Plain.
Deanna Pan can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DDpan.
