Mary C. Waters is an American sociologist.

B.A. in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1978, an M.A. in Demography (1981) and an M.A. (1983) and PhD in Sociology (1986) from the University of California at Berkeley. She has taught at Harvard University since 1986 and is the M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.

Waters specializes in the study of immigration, identity formation and inter-group relations, with an emphasis on ethnic and racial identity among the children of immigrants.

She is noted for her concept of ethnic option

Ethnic option

Ethnic option is a term coined by sociologist Mary C. Waters to express her conception that ethnic identity something that is flexible, symbolic and voluntary, not a definitive aspect of their identity, for the descendants of immigrants. Waters argues that with the achievement of middle- class...

, according to which the children and descendants of immigrants have the option of choosing whether or not to identify with the ethnicity of their ancestors. The term first appeared in her book Ethnic Options, Choosing Identities in America.

Books

• Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America, University of California Press, 1990

• Inheriting the City: The Second Generation Comes of Age (with Jennifer Holdaway, Philip Kasinitz, and John Mollenkopf), (Harvard University and Russell Sage Press, 2008)

• The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965, (with Reed Ueda and Helen Marrow), (Harvard University Press, 2007)

• Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation, (co-edited with Phillip Kasinitz and John Mollenkopf) (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2004)

• Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities, (Russell Sage Foundation Books at Harvard University Press) 2001

• Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective, co-edited with Fiona Devine (Blackwell Press, 2004),

• The New Race Question: How the Census Counts Multiracial Individuals, (co-edited with Joel Perlmann) (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2002, paper 2005)

• The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation, (co-edited with Peggy Levitt) (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2002)

• Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America, (University of California Press, 1990)

• From Many Strands: Ethnic and Racial Groups in Contemporary America, (with Stanley Lieberson) (Russell Sage Foundation Press, 1988).