Shopping for Identity: The Marketing of Ethnicity

by Marilyn Halter

Book Overview

In America today, you can connect to your ethnic heritage in dozens of ways, or adopt an identity just for an evening. Our society is not a melting pot but a salad bar--a bazaar in which the purveyors of goods and services spend close to $2 billion a year marketing the foods, clothing, objects, vacations, and events that help people express their (and others') ethnic identities. This is a huge business, whose target groups are the "hyphenated Americans"--in...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805210938
• ISBN13: 9780805210934
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Schocken Books Inc
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Fabulous

Shopping for Identity is a great book. It has humor embedded into a well-documented research about culture diversity. It leads right to the heart of issues that we are dealing with in our society. I learned so much from it. What does make it more exhilarating while you are reading through the chapters, is that it applies automatically to our real life. True, the concepts are sophisticated, but the writing is so accessible. Even though an academic has written it, it can be read by all of us. Highly recommended.

An important look at consumer culture.

This is an excellent study of consumer culture. Many investigations assume a monolithic "consumer" and Halter adds subtlety and nuance by looking at the ways ethnicity impacts consumption. Highly recommended.

questions for mom???

I read Mariyln Halter's book, Shopping for Identity and found it fascinating. Not only is the book about the marketplace but it touches the emotions of being an American and loving your own heritage. After reading about the Boston Irish firefighters I called my mother and asked very specific questions about my forebears and the struggles they had overcome. Shopping for Identity gave me permission to explore my own personal ethnic identity. I have shared the book with others because it is a great read and an important contribution to understanding the current trends in American culture.

Serious and enjoyable reading

I read Marilyn Halter's Sopping for Identity and liked it so much I couldn't keep myself from sharing my enthusiasm with others. First of all because it is really enjoyable reading. I read the book as I would read a good novel, in spite of being the outcome of serious research. And this is rare. Then I liked it because it helped me understanding American society. As an European who admires American culture, reads a lot of American books and sees a lot of American films the book was an eye opener. I can now understand things that didn't make sense to me for lack of knowledge on a changing society. In this global world we tend to think it's enough to read some books and watch CNN and we'll know what is going on. Reading Marilyn Halter I realized that's not enough, but one book can make the difference. And Shopping for Identity made the difference for me. I hope it will be translated soon, so more people in this part of the world can enjoy it the way I did. Congratulations Marilyn, it's a great book!