ABSTRACT
This book brings together several lines of exploration. I look closely at Asian American musicians and their chosen means of performance and I problematize contemporary American discussions of power and representation focusing on race: I argue that music is performative and that it “speaks” with considerable power and subtlety as a discourse of difference. Indeed, the sounds I address are many things — loud, angry, anguished, joyful, defiant, nostalgic — and the Asian American musicians who make this noise have a lot to say about what they are doing. I trace their words, their music and how they are heard; I offer my own readings of their music and its stirring effects on me, but I place this within the broader political context(s) of American identity politics.
