Tips for Finding Books and Articles about Asian Americans
When finding books and articles about Asians Americans (using the Library's General Search, our databases or Google Scholar) your research question must be clear. Be careful not to use overly broad categories such as "Asians" as this category comprises a wide variety of ethnic and national groups. Instead, choose one particular group (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Korean) + a topic as your research topic.
Tips on finding books or articles on a particular topic
- The most common way to search a topic is by using keyword: terms that best describe the topic you want to study
- The key for a successful search is making sure your keywords are not too broad (to avoid getting too many results) or too narrow (and therefore finding few or not results)
For example, if looking for books in your topic, if you use the word Japanese in your search, it produces over a million results in the Library's General Search, but if you add the keyword internment ("Japanese Internment") it narrows the results to 3,000, but that is bringing all types of sources (books, videos, articles). If you narrow your search to only "articles" published in the last 5 years, then the result list narrowed down to a manageable 289 articles. You can control your search results by using filters (also known as limits). Look for those two terms when using our databases and catalogs.
- Be mindful that research on current events may yield few academic books or articles, but many newspapers articles
Finding Books, Academic Articles, Videos and Archival Collections
Find books, journal articles, and videos by searching the Library's General Search (the text box on the library website). It is one stop shopping to search all our library resources.
Please login with your UConn Net ID and password to access licensed resources
- General SearchYour one stop shop to find books, articles and films.
Tip to find films: use the keyword "videorecording" to narrow your search only to DVDs. Otherwise you will get results for CDs and VHS (Not what you want!). Also, use the name of the Asian group that you want to research on as a keyword to see only films about that group e.g. "Chinese American" AND videorecording - Fred Ho Papers"The Fred Ho Collection on Asian American Politics and Culture is housed in the Special Collections of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. The Collection contains articles, poetry, music, critical reviews, speeches, and commentaries written and compiled by Fred Ho." To learn more about how to use this collection for your research visit Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Center.
Online Archival Collections
- The Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement: A Digital ArchiveThe Bancroft Library's documentation of the Japanese American experience during World War II includes over 250,000 pages from an extensive collection of manuscripts and photographs. The materials in the Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Digital Archive are pulled from our voluminous holdings and reveal the multifaceted experience from this complex time in US history. We invite you to explore these personal materials and recount the daily lives of Japanese Americans while in the confinement sites during World War II.
- Japanese Internment Camp CollectionThe internment of Japanese-American's during World War II continues to be a painful memory for many of our citizens, but now the stories available in this collection make vivid the daily life of this exiled community and their extraordinary patriotism and sacrifice. This collaboration between the ASU Library Arizona Collection and the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records started in 2005 and we thank them for their assistance in compiling and digitizing over 5,000 pages of bi-lingual camp newsletters, which are now text searchable in monthly cumulations. The collection includes bilingual internment camp newsletters and photographs of the Rivers camps in Arizona.
Recommended Books for Background Research
The Asian Americans [Print Book] by ISBN: 0805784268Publication Date: 1991-01-01This series presents concise histories of individual ethnic groups and their impact on American life and culture. With comprehensive examinations of the immigrant experience, it serves as a resource for both young students and experienced researchers. Each book in the series is written by a qualified scholar and includes notes, references, a selected bibliography and a complete index.
The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature by ISBN: 9780415642484Publication Date: 2014-06-17The Routledge Companion to Asian American and Pacific Islander Literature offers a general introduction as well as a range of critical approaches to this important and expanding field. Divided into three sections, the volume: Introduces "keywords" connecting the theories, themes and methodologies distinctive to Asian American Literature Addresses historical periods, geographies and literary identities.
Choreographing Asian America by ISBN: 9780819571083Publication Date: 2010-10-01Poised at the intersection of Asian American studies and dance studies, Choreographing Asian America is the first book-length examination of the role of Orientalist discourse in shaping Asian Americanist entanglements with U.S. modern dance history. Moving beyond the acknowledgement that modern dance has its roots in Orientalist appropriation, Yutian Wong considers the effect that invisible Orientalism has on the reception of work by Asian American choreographers and the conceptualization of Asian American performance as a category.
Asian American Studies Now by ISBN: 9780813549330Publication Date: 2010Asian American Studies Now represents the enormous changes occurring in Asian American communities and the world, changes that require a reconsideration of how the interdisciplinary field of Asian American studies is defined and taught. This comprehensive anthology summarizes and defines the current shape of this rapidly changing field, addressing topics such as transnationalism, U.S. imperialism, multiracial identity, racism, immigration, citizenship, social justice, and pedagogy.
