Research Guide for Asian American Studies 170 VV
Spring 2006
Your Assignment: Write a 7-page primary source analysis on some aspect of Asians in American cultural history.
You are to select at least three sources for this assignment, and these will be the focus of your paper.
One of these sources may come from the course reader; the others you must locate on your own.
A primary source provides firsthand evidence of historical events. They are generally unpublished materials
such as manuscripts, photographs, maps, artifacts, audio and video recordings, oral histories, postcards, and
posters. Published materials can also be viewed as primary materials for the period in which they were
written. Newspapers, magazines, journals, transcripts of speeches, congressional meetings and other government
records are some of the most common types of sources.
Examples of primary sources and how they might be used:
- The film Sayonara can be a primary source for understanding some filmmakers'
attitudes about U.S.-Japan relations, intermarriage, and Asian women during the Cold War
- The novel Rising Sun can be a primary source used to understand American
prejudices and fears of Japanese economic and cultural encroachment during the 1980s
- The poem, "White Man' s Burden" offers a window to the American dilemma after
acquiring the Philippines
- Samuel Gompers' essay, "Meat v. Rice" explicates some of the common charges
made against Japanese and other Asians by leaders of the American labor movement during the early 1900s
Other kinds of acceptable primary sources include newspaper, magazine, and journal articles,
transcripts of speeches or congressional meetings, other government records.
More about primary sources...
From the Library's home page, select RESEARCH then ARTICLE INDEXES &
DATABASES to access the following select databases.
To access these databases from off campus, you must go through the
proxy server.
Primary and Archival Sources
Newspapers
- Ethnic Newswatch (date: varies)
- Lexis Nexis (News section) (date: varies)
- Los Angeles Times (historical: 1881-1976)
- New York Times (historical: 1857-1999)
- Newsbank (date: varies)
Magazines and Journal Articles
- Expanded Academic (1980 - present)
- Harpweek (Harper's Weekly) (1857-1912)
- Readers' Retrospective (1890 - 1982)
Some titles indexed in this database are:
- Life Magazine
- Newsweek
- Time
- Saturday Evening Post
Government Documents, Archives, and Special Collections
- Archive of Americana
- Congressional Universe
- Online Archive of California: (a union database of finding guides from archival collections in 40 institutions throughout California including UC campuses)
The Research guide for Government Documents contains information on how to locate
documents about your topic such as congressional hearings, reports, bills, laws, etc. This resource webpage contains several search guides on various types of government documents such as, Census, Congressional Publications, Declassified Documents, etc.
Additional Primary Sources...
Other Sources with Primary Documents
Humanities
- America: History and Life
- Film Literature Index
- Historical Abstracts
- Literature Online Master Index
- MLA International Bibliography
Social Sciences
- Anthropology Literature
- PsycINFO
- Social Sciences Database (via CSA)
- Web of Science
Literature
- LION
- MLA International Bibliography
Multi-discipline (Gender, Ethnic, Area, politics)
- Alternative Press Index
- Expanded Academic
- Gender Watch
- JSTOR
- Left Index
- Project Muse
Search Strategies
When available use the advance search function since this gives you all the search options available for each database.
You will need to think about the terms you will use, how to combine them, and more importantly, the time period.
- Use OR to combine terms when either one will do: media OR film OR cinema
- Use AND to force the results to have both terms: Japan AND media AND time period (1980 - 1990)
- Most databases let you truncate by using a symbol to get other letters: wom* gets you woman , women...
- The truncation symbol can be a *, ?, ! or other symbols depending on the database
- Be careful that you don't truncate too soon: ta* would also get you tagalog, tabernacle and all other words starting with "ta"
Finding Sources
To find articles, use an article index database to search the terms related to your topic. In order to get the article you will
need to write down some information about the article that you will use to find it in the catalog.
A citation has the following information: journal title, author, article title, publication date, volume and page
numbers. The journal title is what you will need to search the catalog to determine if we have it in print or electronic version.
Use Pegasus, to find the periodicals that you need.
The Pegasus record will indicate in what formats these titles are available i.e. microfilm, print copy or
electronic text. You will need to get the Call Number and location in order to find the
particular periodical in the library.
For example:
- Search Type: "Journal Title Begins with ..." New York Times Microfilm area: AN 34.N 6
- Search Type: "Journal Title Begins with..." Los Angeles Times Microfilm area: AN 5. L7
- Search Type: "Journal Title Begins with..." The Outlook Main Library: AP 1. N43
Ask for Help!
Don't forget to ASK FOR HELP when you need it. You can find a reference librarian at the Main Reference Desk during the week, weekends and even on holidays. For reference help please call (805) 893.3133.
Gary Colmenar: colmenar@library.ucsb.edu.