Karaoke, Mass Mediation and Agency in Vietnamese American Popular Music

In the spring of 1993, Pomona College — a small liberal arts school on the eastern edge of the greater Los Angeles area — held its annual Asian Pacific Islander Week, a week-long festival celebrating Asian and Pacific American culture. At noon on April 2nd, students, staff, and faculty gathered in a courtyard outside a dormitory and sat on the grass in the spring sun, eating lunch and watching as a group of teenagers set up a large sound system and casually tried out hip-hop moves on a small concrete stage area.