Collins Memorial Library: LTS 200: Latina/o America: Books & Articles

Finding Articles and Book Chapters

Not sure where to start? Here are three broad strategies that you can try:

Browse key journals for Latino Studies
Search a subject database, such as America: History & Life
Search Primo for print and ebooks related to your topic

Featured Journals

If you're not sure yet what you're interested in, or you're interested in so many different aspects of Latino Studies that you can't decide where to focus, you might want to just browse through scholarly journals to see what catches your eye. Collins Library subscribes to several scholarly journals in the field, including the journals listed below:

Latino Studies
This journal explores the local, national, transnational, and hemispheric realities that influence the Latina and Latino presence in the United States. Latino Studies presents an international research agenda that builds bridges between the academic and non-academic worlds, and promotes mutual learning and collaboration among all the Latino national groups.
The Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies
An interdisciplinary, international, and peer reviewed on-line journal. This journal seeks to be reflective of the shifting demographics, geographic dispersion, and new community formations occurring among Latino populations across borders and throughout the Americas.

Search Primo

Searching for Books

Use Primo to find resources on your topic at Collins Library and beyond.

When you find an item that seems relevant, look at its subject terms to find similar items. To do this, check the "Item Details" and simply click on one of the subject headings listed in the record for the book; the next screen will list all the books that share this subject term.
To find the library location of a book's call number, check the library map.

Featured Books

Latinos in the United States by Ilan Stavans
Call Number: E184.S75 S763 2018 Print Books
ISBN: 9780190670184
Publication Date: 2018
This book provides a wide-ranging, multifaceted exploration of Latino American history and culture, as well as the forces shaping this minority group in the U.S.
Latino TV: a history by Mary Beltrán
Call Number: PN1992.8.H54 B45 2021 Print Books
ISBN: 9781479868650
Publication Date: 2022
Surveys the history of Latina and Latino depictions, narratives, and authorship in U.S. English-language television since the 1950s, with a focus on the navigations and impact of Latina/o series writers and creators as they have been able to enter the industrial landscape in recent decades.
Latinx: the new force in American politics and culture by Ed Morales
Call Number: E184.S75 M666 2018 Print Books
ISBN: 9781784783198
Publication Date: 2018
In this groundbreaking discussion, Ed Morales explains how Latin political identities are tied to a long Latin American history of mestizaje, translatable as "mixedness" or "hybridity", and that this border thinking is both a key to understanding bilingual, bicultural Latin cultures and politics and a challenge to America's infamously black/white racial regime.
The New Americans? by Heather Silber Mohamed
Call Number: E184.S75 M616 2017 Print Books
ISBN: 9780700623860
Publication Date: 2017
A concise discussion of major developments in US immigration policy over the last fifty years, this book explores the varied historical experiences of the different Latino national origin groups. It also traces the evolving role of Latino social movements as a vehicle for political incorporation over the last century.
Transmovimientos: Latinx queer migrations, bodies, and spaces by Ellie D. Hernandez (Editor); Eddy Francisco Alvarez (Editor); Magda García (Editor)
Call Number: HQ77.95.U6 T74 2021 Print Books
ISBN: 9781496225894
Publication Date: 2021
Features work by and about queer, trans, and gender nonconforming Latinx communities, including immigrants and social dissidents who reflect and write about diasporic and migratory movements within and across geographical spaces in the United States.

Search a Subject Database

Because of the interdisciplinary nature of Latino Studies, there are many other databases that may be useful for your research. Recommended subject databases for other disciplines can be found on the "articles" tab in each library subject guide.

For your assignments in LTS 200, you'll want to limit your results to just articles or books. Click on the "check for full text" link to see if Collins Library has the journal or you need to request it through interlibrary loan.

America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
History and culture of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.
Political Science Complete
Good for researching the political issues related to Latino communities in the United States.
Sociological Abstracts
Database for scholars in sociology and related disciplines.
Gender Studies Database
Scholarly work with a gendered focus.

E-Journal Collections

In most cases, it's better to search the subject databases to identify articles, and then search the journal title in Primo to link to the materials in these e-journal collections.

JSTOR
An interdisciplinary journal archive. It includes archives of over one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. Includes the Artstor image collections.
Project MUSE
Interdisciplinary database includes books and articles from scholarly publishers with focus on humanities and social science.

General Database Search Tips

Try these strategies to become a better, more efficient searcher -- and help you find articles that you can actually use:

Build your search vocabulary -- keep a running list of key words, phrases, concepts, synonyms, and any related terms or ideas that you find.
Use advanced search features -- narrow your search with "AND," expand your search with "OR," or search in specified fields (i.e., author, title, publication, abstract).
Use search limits -- control the types of results you get (academic journals? language?) and how they are displayed (date? relevance?) so that you're only looking at results you can use.
Try multiple searches and evaluate your results -- try to figure out why you got the results you did, and adjust your search until you get closer to results you can use.
Use database descriptors -- once you find an article that looks good, see what descriptors or "subject headings" were assigned to it in the database. You can use these to search only for articles that have the same descriptors attached.

Reading a Scholarly Article

During the preview phase, you'll want to concentrate on these key elements:

Abstract (if available)
First paragraph (sometimes the second paragraph, too): What does the author want to find out? What is the research question the author is asking?
Evidence: What are the primary sources the author uses?
Scholarly conversation: What are the other scholarly works (secondary sources) the author uses?
Conclusion (typically the last paragraph): How does the author tie the evidence together to answer the research question? What is the significance of this research?

Once you've selected the article, you can actively read for content, argument, analysis and evaluation.

Tip: Read the article more than once! It may help to print out a copy so that you can make notes.

Tipasa: Interlibrary Loan

If your article is not available at Collins Library, you've got another option for getting it. Use Tipasa, our interlibrary loan service.

Tipasa is linked to your library account so you'll need to log in to use it.

Once you are logged in, either go directly to Tipasa and manually enter the information, or, if you're using a database, look for a shortcut link to automatically fill out the form:

Allow at least a week for the article to come. If your article is delivered in electronic format, you'll receive an email with a link to follow as soon as it's arrived.