The vertical file is an eclectic accumulation of thousands of miscellaneous items that document the life of Southeast Asian American communities. Here can be found information on a wide range of topics such as cultural events, pertinent issues of the day, organizations and businesses, student activities, local politics, health concerns, and family relations. Types of material include newspaper clippings, magazine and journal articles, unpublished student and conference papers, ephemeral items such as brochures, posters, flyers, event programs, and periodicals in English and Southeast Asian languages. California sources are best represented in the clippings file, but newspaper articles from other parts of the United States are included, as well as limited items from international papers.

The Southeast Asian Archive of the University of California, Irvine Libraries was established in 1987 with the primary purpose of documenting the new Southeast Asian population in Orange County. After the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, California became home to over 400,000 refugees and immigrants from the former Indochina: Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. By the 1980s Orange County was the site of the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam, as well as the residence of approximately 10,000 Hmong refugees from Laos. (Most of Orange County's Hmong population have since migrated to other parts of California and the U.S.)

100 Linear Feet and 96 digitized images

Property rights reside with the University of California. Copyrights are generally retained by the creators of the records and their heirs, unless transferred to the University of California. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where the UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Collection open for research.