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Latin American Studies

The Latin American population is made up of a number of ethnic groups from Central America, South America, the Caribbean and the United States, who differ in language, culture, and history. This guide provides references to selected materials from a variety of disciplines on Latin American studies, and draws from McHenry Library's collection of print and electronic resources. Information in this guide is organized by the following categories, with annotations and instructions when necessary:

Background info || Articles in periodicals || Journals || Books || Web sites || Style guides

FIND BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Books in the McHenry Reference Collection provide definitions, topical overviews, and bibliographies on a variety of subjects. (Note: Books in the McHenry Reference Collection are shelved in the 2nd-floor Reference Stacks.)

Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture McH REF F1406 .E53 1996

Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures McH REF F1406 .E515 2000

A Political and Economic Dictionary of Latin America McH REF F1406 .C35 2004

Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics McH REF F1410 .E56 2002
Provides country profiles, overview of major events, military regimes, and biographical information.

Pop Culture Latin America! : Media, Arts, and Lifestyle McH REF F1414.2 .S495 2005

FIND ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS: Articles databases allow you to search for articles by topic. Note: The following databases are available from the Library's Research page (http://library.ucsc.edu/research.html).

Expanded Academic ASAP, InfoTrac (Coverage varies: 1980- )
Use this database to find citations to articles in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and popular media. Full text is available for selected articles. This database allows limiting a search to scholarly/refereed (peer-reviewed) publications.

HAPI Online: Hispanic American Periodicals Index (Dates covered: 1970-)
Find citations to articles and documents covering Central and South America, Latin America, Mexico, the Caribbean, U.S.-Mexico border region, and Hispanics in the United States.

Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) (Dates covered: 1935-)
Bibliography on Latin America consisting of citations to works in the humanities and social sciences selected by scholars. Searchable in English and Spanish. Includes abstracts for most resources.

America: History and Life (Dates covered: 1964- )
Provides citations to articles and other works in U.S. and Canadian history.

Historical Abstracts (Dates covered: Articles written 1954 - present)
Find citations and abstracts for works covering the history of the world from 1450 to the present.

Sociological Abstracts (Dates covered: 1963- )
Find citations to articles and other works in sociology.

MLA International Bibliography (Dates covered: 1963- )
Find citations to articles and other works in the humanities. This database has an emphasis in literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore.

Project Muse (Coverage varies)
Provides full-text access to over 100 scholarly journals in the a variety of subjects in addition to Latin American studies.

ERIC (Dates covered: 1966- )
Find citations and abstracts of papers, articles, books, and government publications on education. Full text is available for ERIC documents published after 1997.

JSTOR (Coverage: Archival. Latest three years are not available.)
Provides full-text of back issues of more than 160 academic journals in the humanities, science and engineering, and social sciences.

PsycINFO (Dates covered: 1840- )
Find citations to articles and other works in psychology.

PAIS International Database (Dates covered: 1972 - present, abstracts start at 1985)
Public Affairs Information Service provides citations and short abstracts for journal articles, books, conference proceedings, government documents, and statistical directories. Subjects include government, international relations, legislation, political science, statistics, and related areas.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (Dates covered: 1975-)
Provides citations and abstracts for journal articles in political science, international relations, law, and public administration and policy.

Women's Studies International (Dates covered: 1972- )
Find citations to articles and other works in women’s studies, including core disciplines of feminist scholarship.

Ethnic Newswatch (Coverage varies: 1960- )
Find the full text of articles in selected periodicals "of the ethnic, minority and native press." Articles available in English or Spanish.

LexisNexis Academic (Dates covered: 1980- )
Use this database to find the full text of articles published in selected newspapers. Use Guided News Search for advanced search options. To find newspaper articles, complete the following steps: News category: General News; news source: Major Papers ; in text box, type your topic; set date to: All Available Dates.

Proquest Newspapers (Dates covered: current & historical coverage)
Use this database to find the full text, in pdf format, of the following:
Current issues of: Los Angeles Times, 1985- ; New York Times, 1999- ; Wall Street Journal, 1982- .
Historical issues of: Los Angeles Times, 1881-1985; New York Times, 1851-2001; Wall Street Journal, 1889-1987.

These databases are licensed by the University for off-campus use by UC faculty, staff, and students only. Use your library card number to access these resources from off-campus using Off Campus Access (oca.ucsc.edu/).

NOTE: UC-eLinks, available in most databases, will connect you to the following: full-text articles, when available; call numbers for print copies of journals; forms for requesting items not owned by UCSC. See How to...use UC-eLinks (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/elinks.html) for more information. For full-text availability or call numbers, you may also search for the periodical title in CRUZCAT.

FIND CORE JOURNALS (NOTE: This is only a partial list of Latin American Studies journals. In addition to browsing these journals in print or online, the contents of these journals can also be accessed using databases like Infotrac Expanded Academic ASAP, other listed databases, and the Online Journals List. Current and older periodicals are shelved in the McHenry Stacks by call number.)

For a comprehensive list of journals, and a listing of the article databases which index them, see Latin American Studies Journals at UCSC library.ucsc.edu/collect/latser.html

FIND BOOKS: Find books, or other materials, using a library catalog

CRUZCAT (http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu) is UCSC's online library catalog. Use CRUZCAT to find books, journals, maps, films (in DVD or videocassette format), sound recordings, government publications, and other materials.

Use CRUZCAT (cruzcat.ucsc.edu) UCSC's on-line library catalog to find books, periodicals, maps, atlases, and government publications located in both McHenry and the Science & Engineering libraries. Although it contains links to full-text journals do not search using article titles in CRUZCAT. Search using the title of the journal you need.

Try using the keyword search option in CRUZCAT to describe your topic until you find the material you need. Combine words using AND to increase your results. If you need help thinking of keywords, ask a Librarian for assistance or look up your topic in one of the background sources listed above.

To find books on Latin America, try a subject search using or adapting the following Library of Congress subject headings:

*Note: Subject headings are sometimes followed by Subheadings; together they provide a more descriptive and narrower subject, for example Latin America -- Social Conditions.

Need more? The Melvyl Union Catalog (melvyl.cdlib.org) contains the library holdings of all UC campuses. It also has links to request items UCSC does not own, through interlibrary loan. Although it contains links to full-text journal titles, do not search using article titles in Melvyl. Search using the title of the journal you need.

FIND WEB SITES**: Web pages on Latin American topics

Academic / Scholary Organizations

Latin American Studies Association: (lasa.international.pitt.edu)
Professional association for individuals and institutions studying Latin America and the Caribbean. Provides links to databases and national resource centers.

Chicano Latino Research Center (clrc.ucsc.edu/)
UCSC organization which supports research in Latin American and Latino studies from an interdisciplinary perspective in cultural studies, social sciences and humanities.

El Centro: Chicano Latino Resource Center: (www2.ucsc.edu/raza)
Promotes retention of Chicano and Latino students at UCSC by providing services and support for academics, leadership development, cultural activities and internships.

Literature, Magazines and Journals

Spanish and Latin American literatures and languages from UC Davis (www.lib.ucdavis.edu/dept/hss/spanish/research.php)
Provides information about specific reference resources and literature databases. Use CRUZCAT to look up sources listed in this guide to locate them in the UCSC collection.

LANIC Literature Sources (lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/literature)
Links to literature sources from specific countries as well as regional and international sources. Also includes links to magazines and journals freely available on the web.

Social Issues / Statistics

Political Database of the Americas (www.georgetown.edu/pdba)
Provides information on institutions, political parties, processes and systems, elections and election results, civil systems, and local governance. In English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Organization of American States (www.oas.org/main/english)
Composed of Western Hemisphere countries, the goal of OAS is to strengthen cooperation among member countries in areas of human rights, democracy, security, free trade, and combating illegal drugs.

Internet Resources Latin American Studies (lib.nmsu.edu/subject/bord/laguia)
Provides links to current events, research guides, newsletters, newsfeeds, directories, and public domain databases.

LANIC (Latin American Network Information Center) (lanic.utexas.edu)
Provides access to internet based information from and about Latin America. Subjects include education, employment, countries, government, recreation, media and communication, humanities, social sciences, science, sustainable development, society and culture.

LANIC - Statistics (lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/statistics)
Provides links to statistical information on specific Latin American countries, as well as links to sources from regional and international organizations.

**Use the Library's How to...Evaluate Information on the Web (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/evaluate.html) to determine the quality of any Web site.

STYLE GUIDES: Organizing your references

How to ... Use MLA Bibliographic Style (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/mla_citations.html)
How to ... Use APA Bibliographic Style (http://library.ucsc.edu/ref/howto/apa_citations.html)