Ruth Behar

Ruth Behar is an anthropologist and writer. She was born in Havana, Cuba, and emigrated to the United States with her family in the wake of the 1959 Cuban revolution, settling in Queens, New York. Behar’s grandparents immigrated to Cuba from Poland and Turkey, and she grew up speaking Spanish and hearing her Turkish grandparents’ Ladino at home. Behar has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and Ph.D. in anthropology from Princeton University, and she is currently a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. Her writings include ethnography, poetry, memoir, and children’s fiction.