Library Research Guides: AMST 151: The Asian American Experience: Find Primary Sources

Digitized Primary Sources

The American Historical Association has put together this page on finding and evaluating archival resources that can be a good start for your search: Finding and Evaluating Archives

Migration to New Worlds
This source contains letters, journals, images, and more that cover all aspects of the migration experience, from motives and departures (from Europe and Asia) to arrival and permanent settlement (in North and South America as well as Oceania).
Dates: 1800-1924 CE
China, America and the Pacific
A primary source archive of images, writings, economic accounts books, maps, and more about the trading and cultural relationships between China, America and the Pacific region, with a heavy focus on the 19th Century.
Dates: 1648-1997 CE

Asian Garment Workers in New York City Oral History Collection
Interviews (most from 1989) of garment workers who came to New York City from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, and California. Topics covered include emigration to the United States, working conditions, unions, major strikes, and effects of globalization. From NYU's Tamiment Library
Asian Women United Oral History Collection
13 interviews that document the individual stories and contributions of members of this New York-based nonprofit. Formed in 1978, this feminist organization sought to support, educate and empower Asian-American women.
Calisphere
A gateway to digital collections from California's great libraries, archives, and museums. Collection strengths include California history, Chinese immigration, and the 19th century. Some primary sources are organized into exhibitions, e.g., California Cultures: Asian Americans
Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project
"The Densho Archives contain primary sources that document the Japanese American experience from immigration in the early 1900s through redress in the 1980s, with a strong focus on the World War II mass incarceration... Our digital archive includes thousands of historic photographs, documents, newspapers, letters, and more. It is also home to more than 900 visual histories, comprised of over 1,700 hours of recorded, fully transcribed video interviews."
Digital Commonwealth
Explore historical collections from libraries, museums, and archives across Massachusetts.
Digital Public Library of America
Discover over 42 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States
Korean American Digital Archive
This collection from the USC Digital Library includes photographs, documents, and oral interviews.
South Asian American Digital Archive
Over 4000 primary source documents. Browse or search and filter by theme, time period, document type, state, and more.
Welga Digital Archive - Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies
Digitized documents, photographs, oral histories, and other artifacts related to the Filipino and Filipino American experience.

Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present (e-book)
Publication Date: 2006
This collection of primary documents and stories by Chinese American includes letters, speeches, testimonies, oral histories, personal memoirs, poems, essays, and folksongs, providing insight into immigration, work, family and social life, and the fight for equality and inclusion.

Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies: Digital Archives & Oral History Collections
An excellent list of links to collections of primary source materials related to Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies. From UC Berkeley

Historical Newspaper Collections

Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
Full-text historical news articles in major American and British newspapers, including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and more.
Dates: 1791-2003 CE
Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971
Includes newspapers produced by Japanese Americans incarcerated in American concentration camps during World War 2, which can be searched separately as a subset.
America's Historical Newspapers
Full text of more than 1,000 historical U.S. newspapers. Contains Early American Newspapers, 1690-1922, and African American Newspapers, 1827-1998.
Dates: 1690-1998 CE

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AMST 151: The Asian American Experience

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