Anthropological, historical, and musical studies have vividly demonstrated that music is a basic component of culture, and one of the most effective means to project communal and personal identities: music is produced with sonic and non-sonic elements, and consumed in contexts of specific peoples, times, places, and thoughts.

Even though Asia and America are separated by the Pacific Ocean, they are inseparably linked by people, trade, politics, mass media, rapid transportation, and other transnational forces. In this context, Asian American music is both a site and a product of the interactions between Asia and America, and between Americans of Asian and non-Asian ancestries.

-Joseph S.C. Lam