Research Guides: HIST 3340: Mexican Americans Since 1848: Find Books, Articles, & Videos

This guide provides a starting point for finding books, articles, and primary sources on topics related to Mexican American history since 1848 and is not comprehensive.

Librarian

Kristina Claunch

Contact:

936-294-1520
kclaunch@shsu.edu
Library (NGL) Room 223G

Researching the Collection, Articles, & Statistics/Reports

Browse for books in relevant call number ranges to find additional resources.

E184 .M5 - United States, Elements in the population, Mexicans

KF4757.5 .M4 - U.S., Constitutional law, Individual & state, Civil & political rights & liberties,...,Mexican Americans

PE3102 .M4 - English philology & language, Linguistic geography dialects etc.,...,Mexican Americans

BR563 .M49 - Christianity, History,...,U.S., Mexican Americans

Consult the Library of Congress Classification Outline for more information.

Below are sample subjects. You can start browsing for a broad subject like Education, then look for more specific subjects, such as Education England History 18th century.

Mexican Americans History
Mexican Americans History 19th century
Mexican Americans History 20th century
Mexican Americans Historiography
Mexican Americans Civil Rights
Mexican Americans Legal status, laws, etc.
Mexican Americans Politics and government
Mexican Americans Race identity
Mexican Americans Religion
Mexican Americans Social conditions
Mexican Americans, Southwest, New, History
Mexican Americans Texas
Or substitute just about any state name
Chavez, Cesar, 1927-1993
Or search for any person, entering the last name first
Gadsden Purchase
Mexico. Treaties, etc. United States, 1848 February 2 [Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo]

JSTOR This link opens in a new window Huge collection of full-text articles in back issues of journals in most subject areas. Review dates and journals included by subject and alphabetically.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (part of Web of Science) This link opens in a new window Covers leading arts and humanities journals and selected articles from social science and science journals. Indexes articles, bibliographies, editorials, letters, reviews, and more in arts, humanities, and related social science and science information.
OmniFile Full Text, Mega Edition This link opens in a new window Provides indexing, abstracts, and full text for journals in almost all subject areas.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window Full-text journals in many disciplines across the sciences and humanities. SHSU subscribes to "Project Muse Premium."

Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies (SHSU access: 1970-present)

"Hispanic Trends" Publications from the Pew Research Center Reports that discuss findings related to political and social trends among Hispanic Americans.
"Hispanic Trends" Datasets from the Pew Research Center Original datasets of surveys done to gather political and social statistics among Hispanic Americans.

Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new window Source for quantitative facts in American history; statistical tables are also accompanied by source documentation and expert essays to provide historical context. Diverse topics include slavery, migration, health, poverty, crime, and more. Users can customize and download data tables.
Statistical Abstract of the U.S. Online This link opens in a new window Authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States.

Video Tutorials for Searching Databases

In the context of searching American library catalogs, "foreign names" would generally include any non-Anglo names, which are often subjected to (and sometimes distorted by) the Anglo-American cataloging rules. A few examples of this are names of Hispanic origin or Chinese origin.

Use Advanced Search.
Check the box for "Articles" (unless you are specifically searching for book reviews or 17th-19th century British pamphlets).
If you want results from a particular time period (such as the 1940s), use the Date Range boxes to enter a start and end year.
Select "English" as the language (unless you do fluently read another of the languages listed).
Check the boxes for approximately 1 to 4 subject areas from the list provided. This really does help cut down on irrelevant results.
- History is a given, and may be the only one you need.
- Other relevant subjects will depend on what you are researching.

Start with a specific, focused search and work out towards a more general search when necessary. Often you will drown in results if you try to start with a general search.
Put phrases in quotation marks e.g. "Civil War".
Use the language of the time period of the documents that you hope to find. An article written in 1902 may use very different language than an article written in 2002, and you may not find both of those documents with the same search terms. Give some thought to what you hope to find, and try to structure your search (or a series of multiple searches) accordingly.

Searching JSTOR

JSTOR Isn't Google
Advanced Searching

Online Videos from the SHSU Library

A Class Apart
Excellent PBS documentary about the fight for Mexican American civil rights and the impact of the Hernandez v Texas decision.
Latino Americans [PBS Documentary], Episode 1: Foreigners in their Own Land (1565-1880) This film covers conflicts between the British and Spanish colonial systems as Manifest Destiny pushed the U.S into the Mexican territories of the South West, and the Mexican American War. Learn how conquest, shifting borders and dispossession shaped Hispano culture and identity in former Mexican territories of the Southwestern United States.
Latino Americans [PBS Documentary], Episode 3: War and Peace (1942-1954) World War II is a watershed event for Latino Americans with hundreds of thousands of men and women serving in the armed forces. But on the home front, discrimination is not dead. The experience during the war pushes Latinos to fight for civil rights back home.
Latino Americans [PBS Documentary], Episode 6: Peril and Promise (1980-2000) In the 1980s, the nature of the Latino Diaspora changes again. From Cuba a second wave of refugees to United States - the Mariel exodus - floods Miami. The same decade sees the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Central American? (Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans) fleeing bloodshed and death squads. A backlash ensues: tightened borders, anti-bilingualism, state laws to declare all illegal immigrants felons. But a sea change is underway as Latinos spread geographically and make their mark in music, sports, politics, business, and education. Latinos present a challenge and an opportunity for the United States. America's largest and youngest growing sector of the population presents what project advisor Professor Marta Tienda calls, The Hispanic Moment. Their success could determine the growth of the United States in the twenty-first century; however their failure, contributing to an underclass, could also pull this country down. The key to their success is education.