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Born in 1942, Cambodian American composer Chinary Ung came to the United States in 1964. As he worked on three degrees in New York, the political situation in Cambodia deteriorated. Studying with Chou Wen-Chung convinced Ung that he needed to honor the musical heritages of his homeland while contributing to developments in the Western compositional tradition. When he graduated in 1974, it had become too dangerous for him to return to Cambodia to learn more about Khmer musical traditions. During the Khmer Rouge era (1975-79), which led to the deaths of over a quarter of Cambodia's population, Ung fell silent as a composer. Composed in 1980, Khse Buon (which translates to "Strings Four") was the first piece he completed after he finished his doctorate. Here, Ung asks the performer to remove the cello from its Western context, and to play textures and structures derived from Southeast Asian traditions. The work's melancholic tone reminds listeners of the historical context in which it was written.

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Maya Beiser Plays "Khse Buon" composed by Chinary Ung

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Chinese laborers began coming to the U.S. in large numbers in the 1850s. They worked as miners, agricultural and factory workers, and ran small businesses. Between 1865 and 1869, about 12,000 Chinese workers came to the U.S. to build the Western section of the transcontinental railroad. The work was dangerous, and over 1,000 of them died. The derogatory term “coolie” was originally used by British colonial officials to describe South Asian indentured laborers. By the mid-19th century, the term came primarily to denote both South and East Asian indentured laborers who worked overseas. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Dawen Wang is a singer-songwriter who has been based in Taiwan since 2012. A song on his first album, “Ku Li” is a tribute to the Chinese railroad workers.​

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes?

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song?

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How might you envision integrating this resource? What skills or frameworks could students practice? (e.g. textual analysis, media critique)

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes?

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes?

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song? 

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song? 

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How might you envision integrating this resource? What skills or frameworks could students practice? (e.g. textual analysis, media critique)

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Prior to the late 1960s, ethnicity was the primary identity marker for many Asian Americans. Different Asian ethnic communities might work together for certain issues, but they generally did not see themselves as parts of one larger community. The Civil Rights, Women's and Anti-Vietnam War movements gradually convinced activists that--in order to achieve greater political power and representation--they needed to form a pan-Asian coalition with a new identity. The result is the Asian American movement. In the early 1970s, Chris Iijima, Nobuko Miyamoto and Charlie Chin began creating songs that became widely seen as the soundtrack of the Movement. They released these songs on an album entitled A Grain of Sand in 1973. "We Are the Children" underscores the working-class roots of most pre-1965 Asian immigrants, and claims that Asian Americans have more in common with "Third World people" than the dominant classes in the U.S.

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes? 

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes? 

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes? 

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song? 

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song? 

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song? 

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How might you envision integrating this resource? What skills or frameworks could students practice? (e.g. textual analysis, media critique)

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Funkadesi is the brainchild of Rahul Sharma, who grew up learning both African American music and Indian classical music. After experimenting with fusing the two traditions in college, he decided to form an Afro-Asian band when he was establishing a career as a clinical psychologist in Chicago. He said, "I saw Funkadesi’s membership and sound as a microcosm of the city’s diversity and what I assumed (hoped?) was evidence of a local black–brown alliance that countered problematic representations of this relationship in mainstream popular culture." He also believed the band can help create relationships that counters Chicago's rampant racial segregation. Released on their 2008 album "Yo Baba," "Makhana"--which is an Indian snack--is an exuberant song that has long been a fan favorite. It captures the sense of the utopic unity many felt during Obama's first presidential campaign.

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes? 

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song? 

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In 1996, a group of students at the University of Pennsylvania formed the first South Asian a capella (or desi a capella) group. Three decades later, there are over 200 groups, a governing association for these types of ensembles, and a national competition with seven regional qualifying competitions. These groups sing songs that fuse various styles of South Asian traditions with Western a capella practices. Consisting of students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Dharmakapella is one of the perennial favorites at competitions, placing first at the last three All-American Awaaz National Competition. "Jiya Re" is an arrangement of a Bollywood song from the 2012 film "Jab Tak Hai Jaan" ("As Long As I Live"). Written by composer A.R. Rahman and lyricist Gulzar, the song expresses the character's belief in being fully alive and free.

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes? 

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Born in Edmonton in 1945, jazz vocalist Judi Singh was one of seven children of one of the South Asians in Alberta and one of the first African Canadians in Alberta. Her family is a Canadian Prairie example of early 20th-century blended South Asian-Black families throughout North America that were brought together by mutual discrimination. Singh grew up listening to gospel, blues, jazz as well as Indian classical music. As a teenager, Singh began singing in Yardbird Suite, one of Canada's oldest jazz clubs. She became one of most well-regarded jazz vocalists in Canada in the late 1960s and 1970s, making a number of appearances on TV and recordings. In 1979, she made her most high-profile recording, appearing on two tracks on American trumpeter, composer and bandleader's album For Sure! "Time is Right" is the first of these tracks.

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What themes or standards could this help address in your classes? 

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What prior knowledge would students need to engage this song?

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How might you envision integrating this resource? What skills or frameworks could students practice? (e.g. textual analysis, media critique)

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How might you envision integrating this resource? What skills or frameworks could students practice? (e.g. textual analysis, media critique)