Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University. With funding from the California State University system (where I received my MA) I went to Princeton University to attend the conference “Too Cute: American Style and the New Asian Cool,” March 3-4, 2010. I was able to spend valuable time in the Cotsen looking at children’s counting books.

Henry Darger Study Center at the American Folk Art Museum, New York. I received the Henry Darger Study Center Research Fellowship, which allowed me to conduct archival research for two weeks in August, 2009. Darger’s writings are on microfilm at the American Folk Art Museum, and his art and personal belongings are contained in a warehouse. I return in December for two weeks, and am scheduled to give a presentation in February 2010 during Outsider Art Week.

Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA. I looked at every edition of the magazine Giant Robot — from 1994 to 2008 — which I am writing about in my dissertation. Giant Robot covers, according to their website, “cool aspects of Asian and Asian-American pop culture.”

The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. The Baldwin Library, according to their website, “contains more than 100,000 volumes published in Great Britain and the United States from the mid-1600s through 2007.” My research focused on Asian-American children’s picture books and books containing Asian characters. One of my dissertation chapters was entirely influenced by the counting books I discovered here. Many different versions of  Ten Little Injuns, Ten Little Niggers, and one book titled Whatever Happened to the Ten Little Jappy Chaps are housed here.

The P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. I looked at racist “Alligator Bait” postcards to inform my aforementioned counting books chapter. I also looked at materials for the art exhibition I curated titled East of West, which is listed on my CV under “University Service.”

The Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA. While working towards my MA at California State University, I began research here on the British female lovers who wrote under the pseudonym Michael Field. The Huntington Library is home to their plays, which were published in limited edition in the late 1800s, early 1900s.