Your professor has instructed you to produce a research paper on a Chicana/o Studies-related topic using primary source material. You are to select a topic that is related to the class, but not something already covered by the course, its lectures or its readings. You can talk with your TA or go to the Reference Desk in Davidson Library to help you focus your topic.
STEP ONE: CHOOSING A TOPIC
You might want to use a Reference Book to find a topic related to Chicana/o Studies that interests you. Perhaps one of the Reference books listed below will appeal to you. Please note that all of these are located in the Ethnic & Gender Studies Library (EGSL) Reference section, on the 2nd floor of Davidson Library.
UCSB has many Chicano/Latino related collections in Special Collections. This section of the library has limited hours and access. Please consult first with Sal Guereña, CEMA director (893-8563). Sal will be holding CEMA workshops for this class each weekday afternoon (November 9-November 21) at 3pm.
You can also find some digitized Chicana/o Studies resources from other institutions. Here are a few gateway sites that link to Chicana/o Studies materials. If you have questions about using these sources, consult your TA.
If you choose to use CEMA, you should look at the list of Chicano/Latino related materials housed in UCSB's California Ethnic & Multicultural Archive (CEMA), a part of Special Collections. Not all the collections listed have finding aids; take a look at the collections listed and see if there is an active link to a collection guide; if so, the guide will include a biography or history, a collection note, and then a container list that will give you a good indication of the types of primary sources you will find in each collection. Look at the online guides before you go to Special Collections so you have an understanding of what you want before you get there. These materials cannot be checked out; you may only use them in the Special Collections reading area on the 3rd floor of the library.
STEP TWO: CREATING YOUR SEARCH STRATEGY
Your search strategy is what you will use to find information. You can fill out this worksheet to help you build your search strategy.
The search string for this example would look like this:
(chicano OR hispanic OR latino) AND (student movement OR student activism) AND (education OR curricula OR curriculum) AND (university OR college OR higher learning)
STEP THREE: WHERE TO SEARCH
Books
Use Pegasus to find books or videos in UCSB's library to use as primary source material. If you are looking for autobiographies, you can do a KEYWORD search using the person's name and the word "biography." (Example "rudy galindo biography"). If you want to see what autobiographies UCSB has for Chicanos, search "mexican americans biography." Unfortunately the term "autobiography" is not uniformly used. You have to search for biographies and then make sure the book's author is the same as the book's subject.
Articles
Even though you are focusing on primary source materials, you will need to use secondary sources to put the documents in their proper context. Try using the following databases: Chicano Database; Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI); and Expanded Academic Index. If you wish to use article databases from off campus, you must set up the Proxy Server.
Depending on your topic, you might want newspaper articles or interviews with people involved with an issue. Below I have outlined where you should look for these types of information.
Newspapers
You can search full-text newspapers through LexisNexis. Make sure you select "Guided News Search" at the top. Then you might want to Select a News Category: US News and Select a News Source: Western Regional. Please note that LexisNexis automatically defaults to only searching the previous 6 months so you might want to change that. Here is an example of how your search screen might look:
You can also find full-text online newspapers through Ethnic NewsWatch. Try using the Advanced Search screen. You can search all ethnic groups or you can focus on the one most relevant to this course:
Interviews
If you are researching the works of an author or the life of someone, you might want interviews with that person. One place to find citations for interviews is Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI). To find interviews, do a SUBJECT search using the person's name and the word "interviews."
Chicano Database is another place you can find citations for interviews. Go to the Advanced Search screen and select KEYWORD for each box. In the first, type "interview?" and in the second type the name of the person. The "?" at the end of "interview" truncates the word so the database will look for "interview" or "interviews." You might want to redo the search using "entrevista?" later. (Most databases have a truncation symbol. It is often the asterisk (*) or a question mark).
Neither HAPI nor the Chicano Database has full-text material. HAPI links to some, but not much. To get your hands on the articles referenced in these databases, search the journal title as a title search in Pegasus to determine our local holdings.
You can also talk with a librarian about your searches as you begin working on your class project. The librarian for Chicana/o Studies (Anne Barnhart) holds office hours in the Latin American & Iberian Studies departmental library (fourth floor of Phelps Hall) 11:30am - 1:00pm Wednesdays. There is a reference librarian at the reference desk in Davidson Library Monday - Thursday 9am-9pm, Saturday 1pm-5pm, and Sunday 1pm-9pm. You are welcome to ask any librarian for help.
Course for Winter Quarter: Anne Barnhart will be offering Research Methods for Chicana/o and Latin American & Iberian Studies.