background photo Melissa Minton, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This guide is designed to help you start your Ethnic Studies research. Use the tabs to navigate this guide, and be sure to scroll down to see the content on each page.
Please feel free to connect with a librarian if you have additional research questions, would like to set up an appointment, or have other sources to include in the guide.
When you begin any research project, you'll want to start by doing a little background or preliminary reading. Doing so will help you:
Take a look at these sources for background reading available at MJC.
You can find many more articles and books to use for background reading using MJC Library databases like these below:
Why search here? Use this database for preliminary reading as you start your research. You'll learn about your topic by reading authoritative topic overviews on a wide variety of subjects.
What's included: Gale eBooks is comprised of subject, specialized encyclopedias with articles written by scholars and experts.
Why search here? Use this database to search our collection of thousands of eBooks the MJC Library owns through EBSCOhost. These books can be a great place to start your research.
What's included: Thousands of eBooks covering a wide variety of topics.
Why search here? This is a great database to use when you want to explore different viewpoints on controversial or hot-button issues.
What's included: It includes pro/con articles, court cases, primary sources, videos, media, editorials, and news on more than 800 hot topics in business, politics, government, education, and popular culture. Use the search or browse topics by subject or A to Z.
Why search here? Use this family of five history databases to get started with your history research. You can search all five simultaneously or each one individually. The five databases are, American History, African-American History, American Indian History, Ancient and Medieval History, and Modern World History.
What's includes: These databases include a wide variety of research sources including, in-depth overview essays, biographies, journal articles, images, primary sources, maps, videos, and more.
When searching for articles or books in our online catalog or databases, the best research method is using KEYWORDS.
Conducting research on any ethnic group you must consider the range of labels we use to identify ourselves and others.
Effective library database searches use the best keywords and subject headings for the topic at hand. For topics related to race and ethnicity, it may be necessary to think about how a population has been described in the past in order to come up with a complete list of effective search terms.
Here are some examples:
Ethnicity and Race in General
African Americans
Asian Americans
European Americans and whiteness
Immigrant Populations
Latino Americans
Native Americans
Ethnic Studies goes far beyond a description of basic ethnic groups, with a framework for understanding power, inequality, and advocacy. These additional terms and topics should be explored as well:
It is important that we prioritize respect for both the historic culture and the contemporary presence of American Indians throughout California and especially in the Central Valley. To this end, we acknowledge that our campus resides on what was historically the homeland of indigenous peoples who were dispossessed of their land. We acknowledge the Yokuts (also called Mariposan) and Mi-Wuk peoples as the traditional land caretakers of the Stanislaus region who live along a 250-mile-long strip in the central San Joaquin Valley and smaller strip of the eastern foothills. We pay our respects to the (Elders) and our relatives, past, present, and emerging.
We have attempted to bring together quality, relevant resources for the Ethnic Studies issues in this guide. We welcome and greatly appreciate any feedback and suggestions for the guide, particularly from the perspectives and experiences of the marginalized groups listed and not listed here.
Questions? Suggestions or resources for the guide? You can contact us at ask@mjc.libanswers.com
Do you know of other great resources that we don't already have in our collection? Ask us to purchase it.
