Credits

Consulting Historians:

Dr. Marilyn Halter, Professor of History and Director of the American Studies Program at Boston University and Research Associate at the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, lead historian.
Ms. Halter is an interdisciplinary scholar, specializing in the history and sociology of immigration, race and ethnicity in the United States as well as the study of consumer society. She is the author of Shopping for Identity: The Marketing of Ethnicity (2000); New Migrants in the Marketplace: Boston’s Ethnic Entrepreneurs, ed. (1995) and Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860-1965 (1993). Dr. Halter created the syllabi for the “The Peopling of America: A History of Immigration in America” class and the “Marketing of Ethnicity” class.

Dr. Donna R. Gabaccia, Director, Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota.
Her research focuses on gender and international migration, immigrant life in the United States, world history, culinary history and Italian migration worldwide. Recent books include Immigration and American Diversity (2002), Italy's Many Diasporas (2000) and We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans (1998). Dr. Gabaccia created the syllabus for the “Our Food: Immigrant, Ethnic and American” class.

Dr. Alan M. Kraut, Professor of History at American University in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Kraut is a specialist in U.S. immigration and ethnic history, the history of medicine in the United States and nineteenth century U.S. social history. His books and articles include, The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880-1921 (1982; rev. 2001) and “Migration at the Movies: One Professor’s Nominees,” Immigration History Newsletter, XXVII (May, 1996). Dr. Kraut wrote the syllabus for the “The Kaleidoscopic Camera: Viewing the Diversity of the Immigrant Experience through Film” class.

Dr. Lois Rudnick, Professor of English and American Studies and Director of the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
She teaches courses on Immigration and Multi-Ethnic History and Literature and on Modern American Literature and Culture. She has published widely on modern American culture, on the literature and arts of New Mexico and on American Studies pedagogy. Her books include Mabel Dodge Luhan: New Woman, New Worlds (University of New Mexico Press, 1988); Utopian Vistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture (University of New Mexico Press, 1998) and 1915, the Cultural Moment: the New Politics, the New Woman, the New Psychology, the New Art, and the New Theatre in America (Rutgers University Press, 1991) edited with Adele Heller. Dr. Rudnick wrote the syllabus for the “American Dreams/American Realities: The Literature of Immigration and the Ethnic American Experience” class.

Dr. Ann Rynearson, Senior Vice President for Culture and Community at the International Institute, St. Louis.
Dr. Rynearson is responsible for strategic planning and vision, fundraising, community liaison and contract monitoring and evaluation at the Institute where she has been on staff since 1980. She also serves as arts programming director for the agency's two annual festivals of region-wide impact -- Festival of Nations and International Folkfest. Dr. Rynearson has published numerous papers on immigration, refugee and ethnic topics. She served as the Chair of the Committee on Refugee Issues for the American Anthropological Association in 1990-1992 and again in 2001-2002. Dr. Rynearson hasl advised on coordinating the project with agencies working with immigrants.

Project Director: Marcia M. Kerz, President, The OASIS Institute

Project Coordinator: Nancy Thompson

Program Officer: Bonnie Gould, The National Endowment for the Humanities