UCLA Library Department of Special Collections
Nineteenth century holdings include a collection of pamphlets on the Civil War and Reconstruction. Most collections focus on the 20th century: the Arthur B. Spingarn Collection of Literary Works by American Blacks; the George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection; the papers of Ralph Bunche and Augustus F. Hawkins; the Mayor Tom Bradley Administrative Papers (1963-1993); and collections on the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
The Japanese American Research Project (JARP) is the foremost collection in the United States for the study of Japanese Americans. The collection includes more than 100 groups of personal papers of individuals and families; several thousand responses to surveys conducted in the 1960s of the Issei, Nisei, and Sansei generations; more than 400 tape recorded oral histories; art done by internees during World War II; year- books, directories, newspapers, and other rare publications of Japanese American communities and organizations; records relating to Japanese consulates on the west coast; and the administrative records of the project.
Supporting the project records about the internment camps are the archives of the U.S. War Relocation Center at Manzanar, California, the papers of its director Ralph Palmer Merritt and W.R.A. historian Ruth Eleanor McKee, and photographs by Ansel Adams of the center. There are also the papers of Shigeichi Kawano, interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and of Charles Kikuchi, interned at Gila, Arizona. The department holds newspapers published at the internment camps.
Other papers of Japanese Americans include those of the Arai family, New York silk importers; Yoneo Sakai, journalist; Shisei Tsuneishi, poet in Japanese verse forms and collector of that verse; Edison Uno, California educator and civil libertarian; and Karl G. Yoneda, labor activist.
The department has material for the study of all periods of Mexican American history, particularly in relation to California. Deeds and abstracts of title provide the history of land grants. There is a collection of proclamations issued by Mexico during the war, 1846-48. Material on issues of immigration and labor from the 1920s through the 1940s are found in the George P. Clements papers, the Carey McWilliams papers, and the Alice McGrath papers. Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee records, preserved by McGrath, offer material for the study of the social life and customs of Mexican Americans, particularly pachucos of the early 1940s, and give a picture of discrimination suffered and rights redressed. There is material for the study of later labor issues and the César Chávez farmworkers' strikes, which gave birth to the Chicano Movement. Included are drawings for the farmworkers' publications by Andy Zermeño. In addition, there is material for the study of much of the Chicano heritage: from Nahuatl codices, in the Byron McAfee papers and in facsimile, to prints by the 19th and early 20th century Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada. Material on political issues and school desegregation are found in the Edward Roybal papers and various records of the Los Angeles School Monitoring Committee. The papers of writer and lawyer Michael Nava contain records of his works which question the establishment from his positions outside: Chicano and gay.
Resources focus on Native American cultures in the Southwest. There is the Lorraine Miller Sherer collection of research pertaining to the Mojave Indian language and culture. Mythology is documented in the papers of Jaime de Angulo who collected and published tales of several California Indian tribes. Printed works range from 19th century photographs by Edward S.Curtis published in Indians of North America to modern photographs by New Mexican photographer Laura Gilpin in The Enduring Navajo. The image of the Native American in popular culture is also represented in the postcards and tourist books published by the Fred Harvey Company to promote its chain of hotels and restaurants throughout the Southwest.
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Last update: 8/4/98
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