GE Cluster 20: Interracial Dynamics in American Culture & Society

• American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation.  New York : Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1997.

Location: Wall E 184 A1A63448 1997 

Description: Encyclopedia articles summarize the histories of individual racial and ethnic groups (161 groups total) in the United States. Information included for each group: "1) name of the group, alternative names, and names of major subgroups, 2) defining features of the group that cause group members and/or outsiders to define the group as unique in American society, 3) patterns of cultural variation within the group, both over time and space, 4) immigration and settlement history... 5) demographic facts... 6) languages spoken on arrival in the United States and subsequent changes in language use, 7) cultural characteristics of the group including but not limited to economic patterns, housing, religion, worldview, marriage and family, kinship, interpersonal relationships, the arts, health and illness, social organizations, and political organization... 8) extent of assimilation or cultural persistence... 9) bibliographic citations with emphasis on articles and books available to the general reader" (ix).

• The Asian American Encyclopedia. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1995.

Location: Wall E184 O6A827 1995

Description: Includes brief definition of terms as well as longer essays on significant issues, events, etc. Includes a number of entries on key court cases and U.S. immigration policy. Longer essays are followed by a list of suggested readings.

• Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the Present. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Location: Wall E 185.61 E54 1992

Description: Brief entries on people, events, places, issues, art, literature, music, court cases, organizations and legislation of the African American civil rights movement. Each entry includes a selected bibliography.

• Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Location: Wall E185 E54 1996

Description: Includes entries that focus on "events, historical eras, legal cases, areas of cultural achievement, professions, sports, and places" (vii). Also includes biographical entries on African Americans and influential West Indians who lived between the beginning of the 17th century until the end of the 20th century. Features lengthy essays by scholars that "help readers to see historical events and creative accomplishments in a larger perspective" (vii). Includes illustrations (photographs, art work, cartoons, etc.), statistical tables and bibiographies.

• Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001.

Location: Wall E169.1 E624 2001

Description: Includes long entries followed by extensive bibliographies. Entries of interest include: European and Indigenous Encounters, Africa and America, Conflicting Ideals of Colonial Womanhood, Race as a Cultural Category, The Black Church: Invisible and Visible, Prophetic Native American Movements, Slavery and Race, Slave Culture and Consciousness, Thought and Culture in the Free Black Community, Antislavery, Women in the Public Sphere (1838-1877), Domesticity and Sentimentalism, Gender, Social Class, Race, and Material Life, The Harlem Renaissance, Women and Family in the Surburban Age, The World According to Hollywood, Race, Rights and Reform, Second-Wave Feminism, Multiculturalism in Theory and Practice, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinas and Latinos in the United States, Native Americans, Whites and the Construction of Whiteness, Women, Working Class, Borderlands, Ethnicity: Early Theories, Ethnicity and Race, Class, The Pursuit and Exchange of Knowledge, The Arts and Cultural Expression, Gender, and Cultural Studies.

• Encyclopedia Britannica

Location: http://search.eb.com/

• Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1998.

Location: Wall E185.61 E544 1998

Description: Covers "patterns of discrimination that have affected the entire history of the United States," significant events (e.g., March on Washington), historical eras (e.g., Reconstruction), and broad issues(e.g., English-only movement) (xiii). Also includes illustrations, a "Table of Court Cases which summarizes the significance of key legal decisions and provides the cases' formal court citations" (xiii-xvi), a chronology of important events, bibliographies and suggested readings lists, and a filmography with an "annotated list of feature films that have treated civil rights issues" (xiv).

• Encyclopedia of North American Colonies. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993.

Location: Wall E45 E53 1993

Description: Covers "spatial, demographic, cultural, economic, and social aspects of the colonial past... Particular attention is given...to the cultures (pre- and post-European contact) of Native Americans, including religion, governance, trade and commerce, ecological and other results of Indian-colonist contact, detribalized and manumitted Indians, Native American families and life-styles, technologies, aesthetics, and languages... Similar attention is paid to African-American culture... in essays on interracial societies, hired labor, artisans, slave resistance, the variant characteristics of slavery in different imperial regions," and gender relations (xxxi-xxxii).

• Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980.

Location: Reference Desk E184.A1 H26

Description: Articles include the arrivals, migration patterns, economic and social lives, and cultures of ethnic groups in the United States--from Acadians to Zoroastrians. Also includes thematic essays (e.g., "Concepts of Ethnicity," "Federal Policy Toward American Indians" and several essays on immigration), maps and statistical tables.

• Multiculturalism in the United States: A Comparative Guide to Acculturation and Ethnicity. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Location: Wall E184.A1M85 1992

Description: Collection of 12 essays, most of which focus on a specific ethnic group. Essays include a bibliography and information on the following: impact of mainstream America on group identity and culture, strategies the group developed to gain benefits, recognition, internal divisions, the effect of social mobility and exogamous marriage patterns on group cohesion, education and acculturation, intergenerational conflict, strategies for language maintenance and religious orthodoxy (from the introduction). Essay titles: "African-Americans," "American Indians," "German-Americans," "Irish-Americans," "Scandinavian-Americans," "Polish-Americans," "Jewish-Americans," "Italian-Americans," "Chinese-Americans" and "Mexican-Americans."

• Racial and Ethnic Relations in America. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press Inc., 2000.

Location: Wall E49.R33 2000

Description: Includes both brief definitions and lengthy essays. Approaches racial and ethnic matters from the point of view of theory, the perspective of history, and the perspective of current events and issues (x-xi). Volume 3 includes a "'Time Line' that puts issues into a historical context that can be seen at a glance, giving easy-to-follow chronological structure for topics covered in the text" (xi).

Alt Press Watch is a full text database of selected newspapers, magazines, and journals of the alternative and independent press. Covers a wide range of areas including social science, government, art, literature, mass media, popular culture, and more.
• Use It Now

figuring out search terms

Finding useful search terms is sometimes tricky. Often, the language that seems the most natural to us isn't the most effective language to use when searching a database. It's a good idea to brainstorm search terms before you start searching. You'll also want to explore search terms throughout your research process, remain flexible, and try several searches--it may take several tries before you start finding the type of resources that you're really interested in.

A few ways to investigate the language of the database:
• start with a keyword search, find a title that looks like it's on target, look at the full record for that title, then look at the words in the "subject" or "descriptor" section
• use the database thesaurus or subject guide if available to identify effective search terms quickly
• try searching on synonyms--like, "gender roles" or "sex roles" or "gender" or "masculinity" etc....
• identify useful dates (e.g., searching on "Nat Turner and rebellion" versus "Southampton Insurrection 1831")

The symbols vary from database to database, so investigate the "help" screens.

• use the advanced search screens--they give you more control over your search
• learn how to dissect a database
• use "quotation marks" if you want to search an exact phrase
• use connectors (boolean operators) like "and" "or" and "not" to combine ideas and construct effective searches

• email citations to yourself
• if the full-text of the article is available online, email it to yourself
• if you use full-text online articles, record when you accessed it--you'll need that info when you write your bibliography
• if you're not emailing citations to yourself, be sure to write them down someplace
• if you photocopy journal articles, write the citation down on your photocopy, or photocopy the page that has the publication info
• if you photocopy portions of books, photocopy the page that has the publication info (place of publication, publisher, year, etc.)

for more info on keeping track of your research, see "avoiding disaster" from Bruin Success with Less Stress

Ethnicity/Race Examples:

American Indians:
• Indians
• Indians of North
• America
• Indian literature
• Native Americans
• Native North
• Americans
• Cherokee Indians
• Eskimos
• [tribe name] ...

Race Relations, Immigration, & Other Issues Examples:

• Race
• Race awareness
• Race in literature
• Race relations
• Race discrimination
• Race discrimination-- law and
• legislation
• Racism
• Racism in literature
• Racism in motion pictures
• Racism--United States
• Minorities in motion pictures
• Mass media and race relations--
• United States...

• Ethnicity
• Ethnicity in literature
• Ethnicity--United States
• United States Immigration Border
• Patrol
• Illegal aliens--United States
• Undocumented immigrants
• Emigration and immigration law--
• United States
• Emigration and immigration--
• United States
• United States--emigration and
• immigration--government policy ...

• Assimilation (Sociology)
• Ethnic Relations
• National Characteristics,
• American

• Interracial marriage
• Miscegenation--law and
• legislation
•Miscegenation--law and
• legislation--United States
• Miscegenation--United
• States ...