In the prime of the Second Industrial Revolution, native-born residents ranged between 18 and 38 percent, as successive waves of Colombian, Dominican, English, French-Canadian, Irish, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Puerto Rican, Scottish and many other groups emigrated to Holyoke throughout the city's first century.

[7][8] A 2020 study by the Urban Institute found Holyoke to be the least socioeconomically inclusive city in New England for minorities, despite them representing the largest group demographically.

The report found between 2010 and 2015 the racial educational attainment gap narrowed by 30%, however homeownership declined slightly, and the proportion of working poor marginally increased.

[12] In the early 20th century, many Amerindian artifacts were uncovered and exhibited by local architect W. J. Howes, who would lead lectures on tribe archaeology at the Holyoke Scientific Association and was a recipient of many gifts of pottery and arrowheads found by people in the valley.

At the time of writing, early efforts of Americanization had begun, with the city being described both by the Tribune and the Commonwealth's offices as being at the forefront of teaching immigrant groups English as a second language, as well as history, and civics.

[20][21] Black families have resided in Holyoke since its days as Ireland Parish, with one of the earliest records being the marriage of Bushman Fuller and his bride Miss Flora Parry, on February 7, 1778.

[22] Fuller, a freeman who had previously been a slave to one Joseph Ely of West Springfield, purchased his wife's freedom for $100 at the time, or $1 per bushel of wheat.

The two would become part of a small but active black community that resided to the west of what is today called Elmwood in modern-day the Jarvis Avenue/Homestead Avenue neighborhoods.

[31] The other, Kenny Gamble would go on from being a running back for Colgate University to being the inaugural recipient of the Walter Payton Award, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs thereafter for four seasons.

[34][35] In 2018 a doctoral candidate in UMass Amherst's Afro-American Studies Department, Erika Slocumb, began documenting and archiving accounts of black Holyoke history, with support from the Wistariahurst Museum and funding by Mass Humanities.

[44] In the decade following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, other families would move to the area and by 1893 a letter to the editor of New York's Irish American reported the population had grown to 20 people.

[51] Although no suspect was convicted, Holyoke's Joe Fun, who'd opened "The Orient" restaurant five year's earlier faced scrutiny as the driver and a reported member of the Hip Sing, barricading himself in his business across from City Hall for days with his lawyers.

[62] Chen, possibly a member of the Tongmenghui,[63] would go on to serve numerous important roles in both the Qing and Republic of China governments, including Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs for the latter.

[70] As of the 2010 Census, there were 349 residents of Dominican heritage living in Holyoke, and an estimated 5,080 according to the 2017 American Community Survey, comprising the second largest Hispanic or Latino group in the city.

[75] Many of the cities later arrivals would also be hires for the Farr Alpaca Company, of which about half of its initial 200 workers came directly from Canada or England, and was described as "an English mill".

It was through the fanfare of these English and Anglo-Canadian arrivals that the city would briefly host one of the pioneer professional American soccer teams, the Holyoke Falcos.

The parish would hire Greek-American architect Kyriakos Kalfas of New York City, who would base the design on the Church of the Pantokrator in Patras, but decided to use welded steel for the edifice's domes rather than traditional wood and tile-based building methods, seeking to prevent ice and snow from compromising the structure.

[87] Though the meeting was still held with a police presence, a week later one of its speakers, a Greek diplomat, Elias Panas, would be attacked by members of an opposing faction while in Springfield.

[88] Later in November of that same year, members of the Venizelos faction, Holyoke's Greek Liberal Society, would telegram President Wilson, decrying a piece that had been published by a New York paper calling for a new referendum for a ruler of Greece, arguing it was done so by royalists.

By 1920, the Greek language had briefly found a home in the city's press, with the establishment of the New England Greek-American Publishing Company in South Holyoke at 419 Main Street, by one Christ Bress.

Founded in 1900, as a benefit society, the group would host numerous dances, dinners, and outings, buying a plot of land adjacent to Hampton Ponds.

In 1889, during the cross-country tour of the Pan-American Conference, when the city received Adolfo Mujica y Sáyago, a diplomat who would later serve as the Consul General of Mexico to Spain.

[68][101] In 1950, representatives from Mexico, among more than a dozen other countries, were on-hand during the demonstration of the first newsprint commercially produced using bagasse at the mills of the Chemical Paper Company.

[26]: 123, 126 [104] Because of their profession and class, this group largely lived near the French-Canadians near the north end of Downtown by Ward 4, in the Lyman Mills Housing by Oliver Street, as well as in parts of The Flats.

[104] In 1901 a building designed by Holyoke's George P. B. Alderman was built and paid for by the parishioners who sold it to the Diocese at a token price, by 1902 the New York Tribune identified their community synonymous with Mater Dolorosa.

[112][113] Similarly to the French La Justice, the Polish press continued as a private printer run by the same family, even decades after the paper had ceased publication.

One of the notable acts of the Paper City being Larry Chesky and his orchestra, a regular at Mountain Park for decades, and a later inductee into Chicago's International Polka Hall of Fame for his development and promotion of the "Big Band" or "East Coast" style of polka, with more than 100 albums of various artists in the genre featured on his Rex Records label, as well as over 100 albums on his and other labels himself.

[26]: 123 [122] In the 1970s the activism of residents and a local friar led to some urban renewal projects, including the "Pulaski Heights" senior citizen housing.

As of the 2010 US Census, there were 17,825 residents of Puerto Rican heritage living in Holyoke, and an estimated 18,557 according to the 2017 American Community Survey, making them the largest group by single response ancestry.

[152][161][151] During the Russian pogroms of the early 1900s, one such event was an interfaith call to worship, with Mayor Avery and clergy of several churches rendering speeches at the Rodphey Sholem Synagogue in South Holyoke.