Research for this book would not have been possible without the financial support of the Ford Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. The School of Social Sciences and The Center for the Study of Latinos in a Global Society, both at the University of California—Irvine also supported this project financially. Additionally, there are a great many people who have assisted me with this project. I wish to thank the mutual support of colleagues at Stanford including Carole Blackburn, Rozita Dimova, Martha Gonzales-Cortes, Hideko Mitsui, Doug Smith and Miriam Ticktin for their feedback, encouragement, and solidarity through institutional and research challenges of one sort or another. To Nicolas De Genova, I am indebted to the unfettered use of his apartment on my frequent visits to Chicago, for challenging and provocative conversations during the data collection phase of this research, and for productive conversations during the revision phase of this book.
For their wisdom, solidarity and constructive feedback on many facets of this project, words of thanks are due to Deborah Heath, Linda Hogle, Chris Schofield, Joyce Kirk, Erin Koch, Barbara Ley, Paul Rabinow, Rayna Rapp, Alan Goodman, Karen-Sue Taussig, Jay Kaufman, Tom Lauderbach and to Vydunas and Jenny Morgan-Tumas. For reviews of all or portions of this manuscript, I am indebted to two anonymous reviewers, Stefan Helmreich and colleagues in the Departments of Anthropology and Chicano/Latino Studies at UC-Irvine, especially Mei Zhan, Angela Garcia, Kris Peterson, Victoria Bernal, Susan Greenhalgh, Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Bill Maurer, and Leo Chavez. This project has also benefited from the conversations, formal and informal, with Sheena Nahm, Cristina Bejarano, Erin Kent, Connie McGuire and the students in Borders and Bodies and Proseminar courses in the department of anthropology as well as my medical students in the Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community (PRIME-LC) in the UCI School of Medicine. Jose Rea and Victor Becerra can never be repaid for their continued support and inspiration.
Portions of this book were presented at numerous venues and I am indebted to the questions and comments I received at each. Early drafts of chapter 4 were presented at the University of Minnesota Department of Anthropology and at the “Critical inquiries into race” panel of the American Sociological Association meetings. An early draft of chapter 3 was presented at “Nations, Bodies and Borders,” a panel for the Canadian Association for Social and Cultural Anthropology. Portions of chapter 5 were presented at the American Anthropological Association, at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics Works in Progress Series, and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Science and Technology Studies Program. Sections of this book were also presented at Portland State University School of Community Health (Portland, OR) the Five Colleges Faculty Seminar in Culture, Health and Science (Amherst, MA) the New England Regional Conference on Medical Anthropology (1995), and the “Culture, Medicine and Power” conference at the University of Minnesota. I have benefited also from the many thoughtful comments from colleagues at the University of Kentucky, University of Chicago, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-Riverside, and University of California-Davis. I found the discussions held at the Genetics, Admixture and Identity workshop at the University College London organized by Sarha Gibbon, Monica Sans, and Carlos Ventura Santos especially useful in furthering my understanding of population genetics. I am also indebted to Yin Paradies and Malia Fullerton for their thoughtful criticisms and technical advice while I worked through sections of this manuscript.
Additionally, I thank Sylvia Yanagisako, Joan Fujimura, Nancy Chen, and Sarah Jain, for their insightful, challenging and always-helpful feedback and encouragement. I would also like to thank Renato Rosaldo, Jane Collier, Paulla Ebron, Akhil Gupta, Miyako Inoue, and Purnima Mankekar. Their influence is clearly evident throughout. Additionally, Troy Duster, Duana Fullwiley, Melbourne Tapper, Jonathan Kahn, the late Helen Montoya-Cox, Judy Treskow, Joyce F. Kirk, Carla Rodriguez Gonzalez, Cristina Bejarano, and Rachael Stryker have all influenced this project in ways great and small. I am also indebted to the careful guidance of Naomi Schneider, Kalicia Pivirotto, Kate Warne, and Mari Coates at University of California Press. The copy editor Norma McLemore and the production editor Christine Dahlin prevented a raft of grammatical and typographical embarrassments. I and my readers can thank J. Naomi Linzer, the indexer, for her skillful guide to key terms. All remaining errors and omissions, technical or conceptual, are mine alone.
Of course, this project would not have been possible without the countless scientists and research staff who agreed to be interviewed, observed and accompanied from Mexico, the United States, and the United Kingdom, but especially “Nora,” “Gary,” “Carl” and “Judi” (because of human subject requirements, pseudonyms have been used throughout this book). This book is surely better as a result of their insight. A special thanks go to Jim and Jean Morgan for their ever ready support and wise counsel. Finally, I want to thank Janet Walker and Ernest and Gayla Walker whose enduring support fueled more hours of work when sheer force of will did not.