A melting pot stretches out to the suburbs

The Census report will probably show that many cities across the country are very similar to this city in MA, with large increases in their immigrant population. - - Donna Poisl

By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff

EVERETT — Ottavio’s barber shop, with its owner’s accent still tinged with traces of his native Sicily, bustles a few doors down from a Haitian grocery store and across the road from a kiosk where immigrants can wire money to Brazil.

Welcome to Main Street in Everett, where the percentage of immigrants has tripled since 1990 to 33 percent, one of the biggest increases in the state, according to US Census Bureau estimates released yesterday. It is a shift repeated across the state, with immigrant numbers rising in small cities and prosperous suburbs that once had far lower levels of foreign-born residents.
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