Research Guide for Asian American Studies 100 EE
Vietnamese American Experience
Winter 2007
Your Assignment: To develop a wikipedia-type collection of primary and secondary resources on the
Vietnamese American Experience.
Sample Keywords:
1945 August Revolution Dong Du Movement
1954 Geneva Conference Land redistribution
1980 Refugee Act Orderly Departure Program
Declaration of Independence Public Law 95-145
What is a primary source?
Primary sources of information present data that has not been analyzed or interpreted in any way; these are original
research, eyewitness accounts, and creative works from the time period, usually presented in their original form and serve
to help interpret an event. Examples: newspaper articles, speeches, photographs, interviews, internet communications or
other forms of correspondence, sets of data, patents, conference proceedings, autobiographies, government records and
congressional hearings.
More about primary sources...
What is a secondary source?
Secondary sources take the information from the primary source and analyze, summarize, discuss, interpret, evaluate,
report or build on it in some way; are one or more steps removed from the event or information they refer to.
Examples: works of criticism, commentaries, journal articles (particularly outside the sciences), history, biographies,
review articles, popular magazine articles.
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.
Tips in searching databases
History
- America: History and Life
- Historical Abstracts
Film and Literature
- Film Literature Index
- Literature Online Master Index
- MLA International Bibliography
Multi-discipline databases
- Alternative Press Index
- Biography Resource Center
- Expanded Academic
- Gender Watch
- JSTOR
- Left Index
- Project Muse
Sociology
- Social Science Databases via CSA
- Sociological Abstracts
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)
- Government Documents, Archives, and Special Collections
- AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive
- Archive of Americana
- Congressional Universe
- Declassified Documents Reference System - US (DDRS)
- Online Archive of California: (a union database of finding guides from archival collections in 40 institutions throughout California including UC campuses)
- Southeast Asian Archive (UC Irvine)
- Statistical Information (e.g.Census data)
The Research guide for Government Documents contains information on how to locate
documents about your topic such as congressional hearings, reports, bills, laws, etc. Research guides on various types of government documents such as, Census, Congressional Publications, Declassified Documents, are available from this webpage also.
Additional Primary Sources...
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 the " " to search a specific phrase as it appears on the document, (e.g. "Dong Du Movement", "Lap Dong Minh","Treaty of Saigon".)
- Use OR to combine terms when either one will do: 1979 Geneva Conference OR Orderly Departure Program
- Use AND to force the results to have both terms: camp conditions AND Vietnamese AND Guam
- Most databases let you truncate by using a symbol to get other letters: Viet* gets you Vietnam , Vietnamese...
- 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 your Sources in the library
To find articles, use an article index database (e.g. American: History and Life, Historical Abstracts) 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
Printed Reference Sources
Reference Materials
Dictionary of the Vietnam War Reference DS557.7 .D53 1988
Europa World Year Book 2006 Reference Desk JN3 .E8
Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War Reference DS557.7 .E529 1996
Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War : a political, social, and military history Reference DS557.7 .E53
Historical atlas of South-East Asia Map & Imagery Lab, Public Area G2361.S1 H5 1995
Historical Dictionary of Vietnam (2006) Reference DS556.25 .D85 2006
Vietnam Reference DS556.3 .M37 1992
Vietnam War Almanac Main Library DS557.7 .S94 1985
The Vietnam War: handbook of the literature and research Main Library DS558 .V58 1993
Writing about Vietnam: a bibliography of the literature of the Vietnam Conflict Reference Z3226 .W58 1989
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 further reference help please call (805) 893.3133. You can also directly contact Gary Colmenar: colmenar@library.ucsb.edu. or Chimene Tucker: ctucker@library.ucsb.edu to schedule a research consultation.
(Updated: 19/02/07)