Race and Ethnicity in Boston Harbor Islands, Boston, Massachusetts (Neighborhood)

Race and Ethnicity by Neighborhood in Boston

There are 41 neighborhoods in Boston. This section compares Boston Harbor Islands to all of the neighborhoods in Boston and to those entities that contain or substantially overlap with Boston Harbor Islands.

Definitions

Throughout these reports we will refer to several racial and ethnic groups, the definitions of which derive from those used by the US Census Bureau. In the interests of brevity and clarity we have combined several of the Census categories yielding the following mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive categories:

• White: non-Hispanic whites
• Hispanic: Hispanics, excluding black and Asian Hispanics
• Black: blacks, including Hispanic blacks
• Asian: Asians, including Hispanic Asians
• Mixed: non-Hispanic mixed race people
• Other: American Indians and other groups not otherwise categorized

In all cases, racial and ethnic classification is based on self-identification. While the term 'Hispanic' is an ethnic, not a racial, designation (and so there exist Hispanic and non-Hispanic people of all races), we conform with the common practice of comparing Hispanics with other racial groups. This is reflected in our categorization (listed above), and in our preference for the term 'ethno-racial group' in place of just 'race'. Finally, while these categories are used wherever possible, the data does not always allow this grouping, so it is important to read the footnotes of each chart to understand the definitions used therein.

Unlike the other geographical entities detailed on this site, neighborhoods are not recognized by the U.S. Census Bureau. To overcome this we have computed reasonable estimates of the same statistics that are presented for other the entity types. Each statistic is computed as the weighted sum or average of the census tracts or block groups that overlap the neighborhood. A weighted sum is used for counts of people or households, and a weighted average is used for statistics that are themselves some form of average, such as median household income. Census block groups are preferred when the statistic in question is available on the block group level. The weight for a given tract (or block group) is computed as the population of the census tabulation blocks that occupy the intersection between the tract and the neighborhood as a fraction of the total population of the neighborhood.

For additional information about the data presented on this site, including our sources, please see the About Page.