This guide is intended to help you find both print and online Latin America and Latin American history resources. This guide is only a starting point for your research, it is not meant to be a comprehensive list of resources. If you need further assistance, please visit the Service Desk in the library or contact your librarian, April Sheppard, at asheppard@astate.edu.
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SCHOLARLY OR NOT?
Scholarly and peer reviewed are your "academic" articles. These are the ones that deal directly with research, history, or theory. Most likely, your professor wants you to use these types of articles. These types of articles are written by scholars, experts in the field often associated with a university or an organization. Peer reviewed articles must also be approved by a group of scholars before being published to ensure that the research presented is factual and relevant. Not everyone can get peer reviewed.
Popular magazine articles are usually ones that you read for entertainment. These are usually the type of publications that you find at the grocery store checkout. Chances are if there's a celebrity on the cover, it's a popular magazine.
For a more in-depth look at the differences, please visit our Scholarly Journals guide.
Contact Your Librarian
BOOKS IN THE DEAN B. ELLIS LIBRARY
All books in the library are arranged by subject using the Library of Congress classification system for call numbers and subject headings. The main call numbers begin with “C, E, & F”. The basic breakdown is as follows:
| CT21 – CT9999 | - | Biography |
| E151 – E889 | - | United States |
| F1 – F975 | - | United States Local History (States) |
| F1201 – F3799 | - | Latin America. Spanish America |
| F1201 – F1392 | - Mexico | |
| F1401 – F1419 | - Latin America (General) | |
| F1421 – F1577 | - Central America | |
| F1601 – F2151 | - West Indies | |
| F2155 – F2191 | - Caribbean | |
| F2201 – F3799 | - South America |
The numbers that follow these beginning letters relate to the narrower scope of the item. For example, the call numbers F1441-1457 are for books specifically about Belize's history, such as, The Nature of an Ancient Maya City: Resources, Interaction, and Power at Blue Creek, Belize, F1435.1.B54 G83 2007.
Occasionally, a totally different call number will appear. This means the item is about more than history and higher importance was given to the other subject when the call number was assigned. For example, A Guide to the Frogs and Toads of Belize has the call number QL668.E2 M48 1996 which puts it in the subject of Zoology - but that doesn't mean it's not also a good book about Belize.
DATABASES
Databases with green 
or partially green 
icons offer some level of free, full-text articles. In most cases, you must be affiliated with A-State to view the article or on the A-State campus. If you find an article and the library doesn't have it, you may also request it through Interlibrary Loan for free. Articles requested through Interlibrary Loan can take 2-5 business days to come in, depending on the lending library. You can also digital scans from our physical collection through Digital Delivery.
To view all our History databases, click here.
To view all our databases, click here.
- Academic Search Elite This link opens in a new windowMostly full-text, broad subject database with strong coverage in many subject areas.
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new windowAcademic Video Online is a comprehensive video subscription that delivers more than 62,000 titles spanning a range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more.
- American Antiquarian Society Historical Periodicals Series 1-5: 1691-1877 This link opens in a new window
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Print culture dating from 1691 through 1877. Search all 5 AAS series simultaneously. Contains illustrations and ads. - American Race Relations: Global Perspectives, 1941-1996 This link opens in a new window
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Reports, publications, and news broadcasts covering America's fight for racial justice, with firsthand analysis of race relations in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. From the Archives of the Central Intelligence Agency. - Archives Unbound This link opens in a new window
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Topically-focused digital collections of historical documents. Collections include City and Business Directories: Arkansas, 1871-1929; Federal Response to Radicalism in the 1960s; and Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984. - Clase and Periodica (Index of Latin American Journals in the Sciences and Humanities) This link opens in a new windowCitations to scholarly journals in the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English languages.
- Eighteenth Century Journals Portal This link opens in a new windowRare journals printed between 1685 and 1835, illuminating all aspects of eighteenth century social, political, and literary life.
- Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
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Newspaper collections including the New York Times 1851-2003, Wall Street Journal 1889-1989, Atlanta Constitution 1868-1929, Atlanta Daily World, Washington Post, Chicago Defender, NY Amsterdam News, St. Louis Post Dispatch 1924-2003, Communist Historical Newspaper Collection (1917 - 2013). - INFORME ACADEMICO This link opens in a new windowProvides access to Spanish- and Portuguese-language scholarly journals and magazines. The database offers a wide range of content both from and about Latin America.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowMassive journal and e-book collection. Contains core scholarly journals from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication
- Latin America & Iberian Database This link opens in a new window
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Ongoing full-text academic journals that are locally published by scholarly publishing organizations and educational institutions in many Latin American countries, Spain, and Portugal. Major subject areas of study are represented, including business, science, technology, engineering, social sciences, education, and humanities. - Latin American Newspapers, Series 2, 1822-1922 This link opens in a new window
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More than 250 Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Latin American Newspapers. Featuring titles from: Belize, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay. - Making of America Journals This link opens in a new windowFull page images of primary resources from the Antebellum period through Reconstruction.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowLarge, user-friendly collection of eBooks and scholarly journals.
- ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
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The largest aggregated full-text database in the market today, with thousands of periodical titles and millions of full-text articles available. Includes ABI/Inform and Hoover's Company Profiles. - Race Relations in America This link opens in a new windowDocumenting three pivotal decades in the fight for civil rights, this resource showcases the speeches, reports, surveys and analyses produced by the Department’s staff and Institute participants, including Charles S. Johnson, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall.
- Sabin Americana This link opens in a new window
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Works about the Americas published throughout the world from the 1500's to the early 1900's. - Sunday Times Digital Archive 1822-2006 This link opens in a new window
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Gateway to the greatest crimes, careers, and culture of the last 180 years. - Times Digital Archive 1785-Present This link opens in a new window
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Online archive of every headline, editorial, article, announcement, image and advertisement published in The Times (London). - Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive This link opens in a new windowViews of influential opinion-makers, the response of their peers, the controversies of the day and how they developed. 1902-2009.
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WORDS TO USE
Latin American History covers a wide range of topics. If you're having trouble coming up with a topic, here are some keywords you can use that might help you get started:
- Agriculture
- Caribbean
- Central America
- Civil Rights
- Colonization
- Hispanic Americans
- History
- Ibero-America
- Identity
- Immigration
- International Relations
- Latin America
- Latino
- Mesoamerica
- Mexican Americans
- Oral History
- Politics
- Preservation
- Primary Sources
- Religion
- Revolution
- Slavery
- South America
If you want to combine keywords, use the connector AND between terms:
Slavery AND Caribbean
You can learn more about connectors in our Boolean Searching guide.
MORE WORDS TO USE
One of the things you may notice when you start researching Latin American history is the changing terminology. Many of us today use the term "Latin American" or "Latino/a," but that wasn't and isn't always the case.
As George I. Sánchez stated in 1967, "The people of in El Paso and California want to be called Mexican-Americans, the rest of the people in Texas want to be Latin-Americans, the people in New Mexico want to be Spanish-Americans." During this same time, Cesar Chavez spoke about Chicano experiences.
Can you still find historical documents using just the term "Latin American"? Yes, you can - but this does not cover all of the rich history and terminology of Latin American history. Chances are if you just use the term "Latin American," you're going to be missing something. This is especially true with newspapers and other primary documents. You have to search the terms that the people of the time used.
