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Acknowledgements

We would thank the kind and talented staff at Polity Press, especially Andrea Drugan, who brought the idea of this book to us, who consulted closely with us all along the way, and who provided just the right mix of encouragement, flexibility, and sage advice. Neil de Cort, the production manager, brought the manuscript into production skillfully. Caroline Richmond, our copyeditor, was amazingly helpful and patient with us. We appreciate Polity’s marketing team’s work to promote our book.

The comments of the original anonymous reviewers of the book prospectus as well as the comments of the anonymous reviewers of the completed manuscript were very helpful; we attempted to address their many suggestions and think the book is stronger as a result. We greatly appreciate Quentin Lee taking the time to provide us with possible images for the cover, and Peter Feng, Kendall Phillips, and Lisa Nakamura helped us puzzle through which image was best for the book. We appreciate the hard work of Jon Stone, who put together our index and did fact checking throughout. Two research assistants, Michelle Bernardi and Paul Hartley, helped out at different stages. Also, thanks to the students of the Asian American Popular Culture course at UIUC (summer 2007), who previewed a lot of the ideas that made their way into print here.

We would also like to thank Sarah Projansky, who read multiple drafts of the book and gave much appreciated advice throughout the process. Thanks, too, to the shorter ones who give their big support (mostly hugs) everyday, Mina and Daniel.

Thanks go out to a number of colleagues who, without this acknowledgement, would not know that they inspired us to write this book, even though they had no direct involvement in the project: John Sloop, Bruce Gronbeck, Robert Weiss, Carole Blair, Darrell Hamamoto, Elena Tajima Creef, Peter Feng, Gina Marchetti, Tom Nakayama, Rona Halualani, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Herman Gray, Sarah Banet-Weiser, Wendy Ho, Carolyn de la Pena, Jay Mechling, Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, Keith Osajima, Elyce Helford, Karen Shimakawa, Ruth Frankenberg, Ella Maria Ray, Judith Newton, Susan Kaiser, Christine Acham, Sergio de la Mora, Sophie Volpp, Kevin Johnson, Leah Vande Berg, Fernando Delgado, Ben Attias, Bernadette Calafell, Lisa Flores, Dreama Moon, Marouf Hasian, Derek Buescher, Nadine Naber, Laura Lindenfeld, Rachel Dubrofsky, Shoshana Magnet, Diem-My Bui, Ted Gournelos, Joann Wright, Mike Perry, and Susan George.

Finally, many thanks to the graduate students from the Asian Pacific American Graduate Student Organization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who provided support and a needed nudge in times of stasis. Thanks also to everyone in the Asian American Artists Collective of Chicago, the Foundation of Asian American Independent Media, and the faculty and graduate students in the (Speech) Communication Department, the Institute of Communications Research, and the Asian American Studies Program at UIUC. Particular thanks go out to colleagues James Hay, John Nerone, Ivy Glennon, Angharad Valdivia, Cameron McCarthy, Norman Denzin, Cliff Christians, Sharon Lee, Martin Camargo, Sandy Camargo, Cara Finnegan, Debra Hawhee, Ned O’Gormann, Lisa Nakamura, Christian Sandvig, Leslie Reagan, Daniel Schneider, Julia Johnson, Viveka Kudilagama, Pia Sengsavanh, Mary Ellerbe, and Bill Berry.

The publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

Page 32, 35, © John Springer Collection/ CORBIS; 37, reproduced with kind permission from the collection of Wm. Hallam Webber; 48, 69, © Bettman/ CORBIS; 77, © Getty Images; 85, © ABC Inc./ Everett/ Rex Features.