US-Mexican Border Studies: Government Resources

There are many strategies for finding relevant US government resources. As stated above, a great starting point is the UCSD US Government Information Research Guide.  The databases, websites, and print guides/indexes listed below are also excellent.  Several of these resources will help you identify specific publications (with call numbers that you can browse around to find more) that will have information on your topic.  Finally, you can simply go to the shelves with print documents (Geisel 2W) and browse by call number.  In order to find out which call number to browse in, you need to understand that US government documents and publications are organized by the Superintendent of Documents (SuDocs) Classification Scheme, which is based on US government agencies.  In order to find out what letters (stems of classification numbers) have been assigned to different agencies, you can use the list (scroll down to the bottom of the page) provided by the US Federal Depository Library Program.

Please note that I have listed the following resources are in order of my own preference (mostly because of ease of searching), but all resources below are very important.

Foreign Relations of the United States

Official Documentary Historical record of major US foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity.  Includes documents from Presidential libraries, Departments of State and Defense, National Security Council, Central Intelligence Agency, Agency for International Development, and other foreign affairs agencies as well as the private papers of individuals involved in formulating U.S. foreign policy. 

The Confidential US State Department Central Files and Consulate Despatches are reports by diplomats on the political, military, social, and economic events and developments in the countries in whcih they are stationed. In the past, these existed in microform, print, and online formats.  They are increasingly available online, both by the Natoinal Archives and Record Administration itself and in other databases.  Please note that the Consulate correspondence is indicated as "despatches."

• To identify all of the existing records of State Department Central files, see:

US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Department of State Central Files

• For Consulate Despatches, see

US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) list of Deparment of State Consular Despatches 1783-1906

Various Databases provide online access to selected portions/collections of State Department Records -- these include:

• Gale Primary Sources has State Department and Consultate records from a number of Latin American Countries and Regions and periods of time.  To Find State Department and Consulate Information, click on the "Latin American and Caribbean" Module.  Click on Advanced Search (Under the Search Box) and scroll down and click on the downward arrow next to the "Collection Title Box."  You can then select the collections you want to search.  You can also narrow the search by adding additional keywords (such as countries or names, etc.), Content Type, or a particular date range

• Proquest History Vault holds the Confidential US State Department Central Files for Latin America, 1960-1969.  To access, Scroll down to the "International Relations and Military Conflicts Module" to find the "Confidential US State Department Central Files for Europe and Latin America, 1960-1969."

Catalog of US Government Documents: Keyword searchable, online index to government documents provided by the US Government.

Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States

The Print Version is available at:

US Docs, Geisel Floor2 West AE 1.108:G 94 (3 vol.)

The index to the print version is very helpful in idetifying relevant collections in microfilm and other formats which can be used at the Archives themseles, or in many cases, at other libraries.  UCSD holds some of these and increasing amounts of content is becoming digitized.  Additional information can likely be borrowed through inter-library loan.  Such holdings include copies of many collections from foreign archives. 

US Census Data

The UCSD (US) Census Research Guide has many more search suggestions than are listed here, but here are a few useful sites and databases to know about:

Census