Listen: Diverse Foreign-Born Population Crucial To Mass.

All this week, WBUR has been exploring immigration in the region through a series we call "Invisible Communities." We've examined what came of Guatemalans swept up in a 2007 immigration raid, what's causing a divide among Somalis in Manchester, N.H., the struggle of former Cambodian gang members in Lowell and tensions among Haitians and African-Americans in Boston.

These stories are diverse. To help put them into context, we spoke with Marjean Perhot, the director of refugee and immigration services for Catholic Charities, and Richard Chacon, director of the state's Office of Refugees and Immigrants.

We started our conversation by asking Chacon about why the struggles of immigrants in these "invisible communities" matter to immigrants and non-immigrants alike.