Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation

A meticulous work of history, cultural criticism, and political analysis, 'Monitored Peril' illuminates the unstable relationship between the practices of commercial television programs, liberal democratic values, and white supremacist ideology. The book clearly demonstrates the pervasiveness of racialized discourse throughout U.S. society, especially as it is reproduced by network television.

Hamamoto addresses a wide variety of issues facing diverse Asian American communities: interracial conflict, conservative politics, U.S.-Japan trade friction, and post-colonial Vietnam. Through an examination of selected television programs from the 1950s to the present, he attempts to correct the consistently distorted view of network television. He proposes an engaged independent Asian American media practice, and calls for the expansion of public sector television.