This chart displays the origins of New Englanders born in foreign countries in each census year from 1910 (except 1930). It compliments the data displayed in the prior chart--Birthplace of New Englanders--that describes the shares of the region’s population born in New England, born in other regions of the United States, and born in foreign countries.

A striking pattern is the decline in the European share of New England’s foreign-born population beginning after 1920. In 1910, nearly one in five New Englanders had been born in Europe. By 2000, fewer than one in twenty were. Immigrants from Canada also represented a progressively smaller share over the century, accounting for over 8 percent of the foreign-born population in 1910, but dwindling to just under 1 percent by 2000.

The steep drop in the European-born population share starting around 1920 indicates the end of the massive waves of immigration that characterized American demographic change in the early part of the twentieth century. Driven largely by this trend, New England’s foreign-born population declined as a share of the region’s total population throughout the century until the last twenty years, when immigration from Asia and Latin America caused this share to rise again. In 2000, persons born in Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for about 3 percent of New England population, while immigrants from Asia represented about 2 percent.