This collection comprises approximately 3,000 photographs and slides taken by Mitchell Bonner between 1975 and 2001, as well as printed ephemera collected by him through 2012. The images document Iu Mien, Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Cambodian community social and cultural events throughout Northern California, primarily the San Francisco Bay area. The emphasis is on Laotian American communities. The ephemera includes programs, posters and flyers from cultural, religious, and popular culture events, refugee publications, pamphlets and brochures from refugee assistance agencies, and other materials related to social services, education, and refugees. The collection also includes a small amount of material documenting other Asian American communities in California, including Burmese, Thai, Filipino, and Tibetan.

Mitchell I. Bonner has been active in the San Francisco Bay area's Southeast Asian American communities since 1975, when the first Lao and Hmong refugees moved to the area. Over the years Bonner has documented both daily life and special community events, through photographing private and public activities in the Southeast Asian community. His photographs include images dating from a 1975 Christmas party for Vietnamese refugees at San Francisco's International Student Center, to a 2000 Laos New Year's celebration in Richmond, California.

4.3 Linear feet (10 boxes), 275 digitized images, and 3.1 unprocessed linear feet

Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and University Archives.