Marilyn Halter

Marilyn Halter’s interdisciplinary scholarship spans the fields of history, sociology, and anthropology with particular emphasis on ethnographic and oral history methodologies and with specializations in the study of immigrants of African descent, New England and Boston immigrant and ethnic history as well as the relationship of commerce and culture. Her published works include Shopping for Identity: The Marketing of Ethnicity (2000); Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860-1965 (1993); The Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Cape Verde with Richard Lobban; and her edited volume, New Migrants in the Marketplace: Boston’s Ethnic Entrepreneurs (1995). Her current research project is an investigation of issues of identity formation and socioeconomic incorporation among recent West African immigrants and refugees to the United States.

In addition to her long-standing affiliation with BU’s Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, Halter serves as one of the core teaching faculty in the American and New England Studies Program, where she was the former AMNESP Director and currently serves as Director of Graduate Studies. Halter has also co-chaired the Boston Immigration and Urban History Seminar, an on-going series in conjunction with the Massachusetts Historical Society, since its inception more than a decade ago