Global Boston is a digital project based at Boston College that chronicles the history of immigration to greater Boston since the early nineteenth century. Examining different time periods, ethnic groups, and places of settlement, the site features capsule histories, photographs, maps, documents, videos, and oral histories documenting the history of a city and metro area where immigrants have long been a vital force in shaping urban life.
Our Mission: We at Global Boston believe that historical and contemporary diversity has been a defining characteristic of the region and one of its great strengths. The website aims to tell the story of Boston’s major immigrant groups, showing where they have come from and why, and how they have been central to Boston’s history and development, as well as to that of their home countries. We hope to foster better understanding between recent immigrants and the descendants of those older groups depicted here, exploring both the similarities and differences in their experiences amid a changing historical context. The stories presented on Global Boston attest to the power of ordinary people to make history. We hope that new Bostonians can use history as a tool for empowerment to make their voices heard as residents and citizens of the region.
Launched in 2016, the Global Boston website is a work-in-progress. We continue to add new pages and features as well as new topical areas that explore local immigration history from a comparative, pan-ethnic perspective.
Contributors:
Project Director: Marilynn S. Johnson is Professor of History at Boston College where she teaches modern US urban and social history. She received her Ph.D. in history at New York University and has taught at Southern Methodist University and the Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies at MIT. Her research focuses on migration, urban social relations, and violence. Her books include The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II and Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City. Most recently, she published The New Bostonians: How Immigration has Transformed the Metro Region Since the 1960s (2015).
Project Historian & Writer: Deborah T. Levenson is a Professor of Latin American history at Boston College. She has published widely on Central American history, and her most recent book is Adiós Niño: The Gangs of Guatemala City and the Politics of Death. She received her BA and MA at the University of Massachusetts Boston and her Ph.D. from New York University. She has taught at Columbia University and has worked on interdisciplinary research projects in Guatemala. A trained oral historian, she is Spanish speaking.
Editorial Contributor: Elizabeth Graver is Professor of English at Boston College, where she teaches creative writing workshops and literature courses, including a course on Literatures of Migration, where her students conduct oral histories and make video interviews with immigrants. The author of four novels–Unravelling, Awake, The Honey Thief, and The End of the Point–she is at work on a new novel based on the life of her grandmother, a Sephardic Jewish woman whose life path took her from Turkey, to Spain, to Cuba, and finally to the United States. Her author’s website can be found here.
K-12 Curriculum Developer: Sol Rheem received her Bachelors degree from Bowdoin College and her M.Ed. in Secondary Education from Boston College. Formerly an instructor at the Henderson School in Dorchester, she developed the Unit Plan featured on our For Teachers page. She currently works as a teacher at Somerville High School.
Graduate Researchers:
Kelly Lyons, Ph.D. candidate in History, Boston College
Samuel Davis, M.A. History, Boston College
Madeline Webster, Ph.D. candidate, American and New England Studies, Boston University
Undergraduate Researcher:
Amanda Judah, Boston College
