Since 1965, and especially after 1990, more skilled migrants have come to the United States from Asia than ever before. First, please give at least three examples of public laws that shaped these mig

“Music Moms” and the Performance of Asian and Asian American Identities Grace Wang I n a series of articles about summer camps, the New York Times reported on the Perlman Music Program, a prestigious six-week instructional program led by the world-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman. The article focused less on the teenagers who attend than on the efforts and ambitions of the “music moms” who enroll their children in advanced programs of music study. As the reporters note: “‘music moms’ seasons are far longer than those of soccer moms. Their financial payoffs are far smaller and more elusive than those of tennis moms. But they are every bit as competitive, protective, ambitious, and self-sacrificing.” The ethos of self-sacrifice emerges clearly in a comment offered by one of the article’s featured mothers, Mrs. Kim, who bluntly states:

“First priority is Yoon-jee.” 1 For Mrs. Kim, this has meant living apart from her husband, a South Korean diplomat whose work required him to return to Seoul, so that her daughter, Yoon-jee, could continue her piano studies at the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division. From the initial decision to enroll their children in music lessons to the continued labor of driving back and forth to music lessons, performances, auditions, and rehearsals, “music moms” are active architects of their children’s musical development. What the New York Times article makes clear is the integral part that parents—in particular mothers—play in the realm of classical music training.

Indeed, to understand the broad context of Western classical music making, an examination of the role of “music moms” who facilitate and support their children’s musical pursuits is critical. Variations of the “stage mom” exist in many different realms, from competitive sports to beauty pageants. Yet, while the “soccer mom” typically brings to mind the image of a middle-class, white, suburban mother, as this essay reveals, the traits of sacrifice, pushiness, and determination embodied in the “music mom” have increasingly become as- sociated with being Asian.

2 The contemporary racialization of the “music mom” is not necessarily surprising given the large number of Asians and Asian Americans involved | 882 American Quarterly in classical music training in the United States. At leading music schools and departments, Asians and Asian Americans constitute from 30 to 50 percent of the student population. 3 The numbers are often higher at the pre-college level. At highly regarded programs such as Juilliard Pre-College, Asians and Asian Americans compose more than half the student body; the two largest groups represented are students of Chinese and Korean descent studying the violin or piano. 4 The growing participation of Asians and Asian Americans in classical music over the past few decades can be linked to multiple contexts: the historical deployment of Western classical music in East Asia, the economic ascension of East Asian nations, and the wave of educated and professional Asian immigrants who arrived in the wake of changes in American immigra- tion policies in 1965. 5 Still, socioeconomic and demographic shifts tell only part of the story. To explore how Asian American musicians and their families understand their own participation in classical music, I conducted interviews with parents at Juilliard Pre-College and with Asian American classical musicians living in New York City. 6 As a center for both music and immigration, New York offered an ideal focal point through which to examine the transnational travel of people, music, and cultural ideas and the ways that individuals use discourses of race and music in everyday, local contexts. I draw on these oral interviews—as well as mass media sources, attendance at concerts, and meetings held for Juilliard parents—to demonstrate how race, class, and cultural hierarchy circulate in the U.S. culture of classical music. While the characteristics associated with the self-sacrificing and competitive “Asian” mom in classical music appear, on the surface, to reproduce stereo- typical notions about racial difference, this essay suggests a more complex relationship between cultural practices and narratives. As I will show, the narratives that my interviewees tell about their involvement in classical music draw on a complicated, and sometimes contradictory, set of racial and musi- cal discourses. Racialized discourses about Asians and Asian Americans—as disciplined, hard-working, family-oriented, imitative, and zealous embracers of Western culture—map unevenly onto beliefs that classical music connotes an “international” or “universal” language, a site of transcendent beauty, a unique cultural property of the West, and a cultural system through which the power of the West is enacted and authorized. This essay asks: how do Asian Americans mobilize the multiple meanings contained in music to engage with and challenge their racial construction in the nation? And how do Asian parents—primarily first-generation Chinese and Korean mothers—choose from and reformulate available cultural narratives to articulate their own race and class positioning in the United States? 7 |883 Interlopers in High Culture In answering these questions, I draw on Pierre Bourdieu’s articulation of culture as a multidimensional field wherein groups and individuals compete to gain various forms of capital, and I extend his analysis to consider the transnational circulation of cultural capital. 8 Participating in a global cultural economy historically structured by Western dominance, Asian parents perceive Western cultural norms and capital as yielding the highest forms of recogni- tion on an international stage. At the same time, the declining interest paid to classical music in the contemporary U.S. context allows these parents to narrate their place within a field of culture that is marginal and prestigious as a critical way to set themselves apart from—and, indeed, above—mainstream American norms and values. Underpinning Asian parents’ involvement in classical music is a desire to be arbiters of high cultural knowledge and to inhabit cultural and class identities of their own choosing.

Western Classical Music in East Asia [In Japan,] classical music was part of the mandatory education. . . . Everything was based on classical music. They just started making Japanese traditional music mandatory as well.

So classical music is part of the culture. The fact that I grew up and didn’t know anything about Japanese traditional music is more of a surprise to many non-Japanese people.

—Midori, violinist Midori’s observation that Western classical music—rather than Japanese traditional or art music—formed the basis of her music education reveals the extent to which Western music is part of both her own background and contemporary Japanese culture more broadly. Her characterization of Japanese traditional music as unfamiliar and “classical music” as unmarked (i.e., assumed to be Western classical music) blurs the boundaries of race and nation typically placed on ideas of musical ownership. Indeed, the strong educational structure and government support for Western classical music in Japan, Korea, and China have helped make East Asia a key site for the global circulation of Western music. Mainstream media reports have even begun pointing to East Asian performers and composers as preserving and revitalizing Western classical music in the contemporary period. 9 In 2007, the New York Times published a three-part series about Western classical music in China, pointing to the nation—which dominates the global market in the produc- tion of pianos and violins and boasts a staggering 30 million piano students and 10 million violin students—as the “future” of classical music. 10 Despite such pronouncements, in these media reports, the strength of classical music in East Asia is always deferred to the future. In the global market of classical music, the best schools and sites for a musical career still remain firmly in | 884 American Quarterly Europe and the United States, with East Asians traveling to these “centers” of the musical tradition.

To understand the intensity of interest in Western classical music in East Asia, and to contextualize more fully the value and meanings that my in- terviewees ascribe to this musical form, it is useful to briefly historicize the dissemination of Western classical music in Japan, China, and Korea. In all three nations, Western classical music first arrived by way of Christian mis- sionaries and missionary schools but spread through government interventions that linked modernization with Western music principles. 11 Recognizing the pragmatic use of Western music for social and political purposes in East Asia helps to challenge, at the outset, beliefs about the transcendent or universal- izing properties of Western classical music. In Japan, classical music did not grow in popularity until the Meiji govern- ment (1868–1912) incorporated it into its military and educational system as part of a broader “national goal of catching up with the West.” 12 Driven less by aesthetic reasons than social and political concerns, the Meiji government sought to refashion the cultural and musical landscape of Japan as a means of winning respect in a Western-dominated world order. While Japan was not subject to literal colonial rule, unequal power relations shaped the terms and context of the spread of Western music in that country. Historian E. Taylor Atkins observes that “the Meiji government’s motivation for adopting Western music as the standard for the nation’s military and educational system was part of the larger program of importing Western culture and technology in order to achieve parity with Western nations and renegotiate unequal treaties.” 13 In this way the Meiji government deployed Western classical music in the service of political and economic goals. In China, state-directed reforms also facilitated the spread of Western music. Inspired by the successes of the Meiji government, Chinese national- ists introduced educational reforms based on Western principles as part of a broader project of nation building. Andrew Jones notes that by the late nine- teenth century, “musicians, cultural critics, and educators promoted music as a means of national mobilization, resisting Western imperialism, and fighting Japanese aggression. Musical modernization, moreover, was conducted not under the auspices of the bourgeoisie, but of the nationalist state.” 14 The social and political meanings attributed to Western classical music shifted during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), when the performance of and study of European composers were banned for their association with foreign and bourgeois influences. However, large numbers of musicians were trained in Western instruments and traditional Chinese music to perform the model |885 Interlopers in High Culture operas and revolutionary songs that proliferated during that decade. This musical training helped provide the basis for the renewed public embrace of Western music following the Cultural Revolution. 15 During the Japanese colonization of Korea (1910–1945), the Japanese government limited music education to the teaching of Japanese and Western songs. While the Korean government reintroduced traditional Korean music into the formal educational curriculum following Japanese liberation at the end of World War II, Western music training continued to flourish as colleges and universities established music departments. By the 1990s, ninety-four universities had music schools offering majors in Western classical music performance. The first music conservatory—modeled after schools such as the Juilliard School in New York City and the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris—was established in Seoul in 1993. 16 In Japan, China, and Korea, the aesthetic appeal of Western classical music continues to be imbricated in the extramusical meanings of cultural prestige and modernity ascribed to it. 17 Musicologist Yayoi Everett observes: “From a sociological vantage point, modernizing East Asian nations legitimized and embraced Western art music as a marker of status, along with their commodi- fication of the Western lifestyle.” 18 The lavishly constructed concert halls and professional symphony orchestras in the major cities of Japan, China, and Korea function as visible symbols of the economic growth of the region and of the growing middle class able to patronize these performances. 19 The rising status of and interest in Western classical music in East Asia helps to account for the increasing numbers both of Asian musicians traveling to the United States to continue their musical training and of Asian immigrants enrolling their children in classical music training. For the wave of profes- sional and educated Asians who arrived in the United States following the removal of national-origins quotas and the implementation of occupational and investor preference categories in 1965 immigration policy, classical music embodied high cultural status and transnational cultural capital. Understand - ing the history of Western classical music in East Asia allows us to see how Asian parents are participating in a long tradition of using music to pursue particular cultural, political, and pragmatic goals. 20 Racializing Musical Encounters While the growing numbers of Asians and Asian Americans participating in classical music have now made their presence normative, classical music remains a site that reaffirms ideas about racial and cultural difference. The | 886 American Quarterly assertions made by the musicians I interviewed exemplify the contradictory logic contained in the beliefs that music is a meritocratic culture wherein race does not matter and that race is a feature that differentiates one’s playing and position in this field of culture. Musicians frequently drew on discourses about the universal language of music and pointed to practices such as “blind” auditions to corroborate their belief that musicians are judged solely on skill.

In blind auditions—a practice adopted by most major symphony orchestras during the 1970s and 1980s—musicians play behind a screen that conceals their identity completely. Blind auditions not only help create the sense of a level playing field, but also effectively counter stereotypical assumptions about the ability to hear race or other social categories in musicianship. As the prominent violin teacher Dorothy DeLay once stated: “If you have musicians play behind a screen, I would defy anyone to pick Asians out.” 21 Most music making, however, does not occur behind a screen. While as- serting that they had never experienced outright discrimination, musicians nonetheless acknowledged the racialized terrain in which their music making takes place. All of the musicians I interviewed could list a range of racialized assumptions that informed their experience of playing classical music, from stereotypes of being “technicians” who “play without feeling” to tacit no- tions of being “overrepresented” or part of an “undifferentiated mass” that is “overtaking” the field. While these stereotypes typically referred to the “Asian” player, my interviewees acknowledged how they applied equally to Asian Americans. Cara, a Chinese American violinist, further elaborated: “You won’t ever hear a person with a non-Asian background being described as sounding ‘Asian.’ Actually, it would never even occur to me.” To sound “Asian”—a type of playing uniquely linked to Asians—is always understood as a critique, a type of technical playing that betrays one’s racialized body and personality.

As Midori’s observation suggests, descriptions of racial and national styles of playing express hierarchical distinctions: “When we hear someone play, we might say, ‘oh, that sounds so German,’ and inherently we hear that as very positive; whereas, if we hear that someone sounds so Asian, we think of that completely negatively.” She described “Germanic” styles of playing as “mascu- line” and “robust,” and noted how the valorization of such traits contributes to gendered beliefs that “women can’t play certain types of music.” 22 The multiple ideas about race and other social categories circulating in Midori’s comment underscore a critical point: there is no “pure” mode of listening. Studies have shown that listeners—even music experts—hear with their eyes; in other words, what we see influences what we hear. In one such study, eighty-eight music teachers were shown videotapes of trumpet and flute |887 Interlopers in High Culture students and asked to evaluate their performances. 23 As the videotapes were synchronized to identical trumpet and flute performances, the only chang- ing variables were the instrument, gender, and race (white and black) of the performers. The music teachers scored the performance of women lower than men, female trumpeters lower than female flutists, and blacks significantly lower than whites. In this example, we clearly see how preconceptions about gender and race—and intersecting gendered and racialized beliefs associated with particular musical instruments—impact evaluations of musical perfor- mance. Such presumptions can serve as self-fulfilling prophecies about the validity of racial and gendered ideologies in music. Within the U.S. context, the belief that Asians are overrepresented or will overtake U.S. music schools activate “yellow peril” anxieties about the success achieved by Asians and Asian Americans in classical music. Meanwhile, images of the hard-working and obedient Asian American draw upon and fuel model minority stereotypes; playing the violin or piano is itself a component of the stereotypical image of the overachieving Asian American who excels at both academics and a musical instrument. 24 In the classical music world, model minority discourses are particularly salient, since the hard work and discipline that classical music training demands overlap with many of the cultural at- tributes “naturally” associated with Asians and Asian Americans. While “hard work” is valorized in the U.S. context, this purported virtue can become deviant when pushed to excess. My interviews were laced with observations such as the following: “[Asians] are always in the practice room working to get things right, but they don’t have an emotional connection to the music” and, “Some people want to assign Asian Americans with an assembly-line mentality, even toward music.” Taken to its zealous extreme, the unrelenting work ethic and discipline of Asians appear to evacuate them of creativity and feeling. Such characterizations help to alleviate anxieties over the success Asians and Asian Americans have achieved in this field of culture, expressing and naturalizing hierarchies in classical music specifically, and in U.S. society broadly. Asians and Asian Americans become the implied foil for normative white Americans, whose balanced pursuit of work and innovation will ultimately prove more successful.

25 Critical of the stereotypical assumptions they faced, musicians struggled to find sufficient distance from them. Katherine, a Korean American violinist, lamented: “For Asian Americans, the whole model minority thing definitely gets played out through music. And there’s not a lot you can do about it. You can try to differentiate yourself with your playing, but it’s hard because so much of the audience doesn’t really know anything about the music.” The lack | 888 American Quarterly of knowledge about classical music that Katherine perceived in her audiences led her to lament that social factors such as race, gender, and sexuality played an augmented role in “selling” performers to audiences.

Given the shrinking and graying of audiences for classical music concerts, the decline in radio stations devoted to classical music programming, and the decrease in funding for music education in public schools, many classical musicians use innovative strategies to “sell” themselves to a broader audience in the United States and beyond. 26 Often these strategies involve challeng- ing the boundaries that consecrate the “high” status of classical music by diversifying their repertoire or choice of concert setting. Few musicians have been as skilled at widening the parameters of classical music making as cellist Yo-Yo Ma, whose musical adventures beyond the core canon of the Western classical tradition include experimentations in Appalachian, Brazilian, and Argentinean tango music; collaborations with Bobby McFerrin and the Mark Morris Dance Group; and an exploration of European, Middle Eastern, and Asian musical traditions that developed along the historic Silk Road trade route. Considering Ma’s omnivorous musical interests, it would be an over- simplification to interpret the Silk Road project as merely a reclamation of his cultural heritage. 27 Nonetheless, “returning to one’s roots” is a familiar discursive trope on which Asian American musicians draw to promote specific performance programs and recordings. 28 While Asian American musicians may believe themselves to have a special connection to music composed by East Asians or Asian Americans, they are also cognizant of the authority that the script of “exploring one’s heritage” holds for audiences, particularly within discourses of U.S. multiculturalism. For instance, Cara observed that when she programmed works by Chinese composers in a recital tour, her audiences (which she de- scribed as a mostly older and white demographic) especially enjoyed them: “I’ve started programming the Chinese fisherman’s song in my recitals. It’s a short piece. And it’s gimmicky. But the audience loves it. They always tell me it was their favorite piece.” Cara’s use of the word “gimmicky” is telling. It implies that there is something particularly pleasurable about hearing a song based on Chinese folk tunes performed by a Chinese American musician. Indeed, such audience reactions can form a double-edged sword for performers, as they both offer an opportunity to connect with audiences while also reinforcing discourses of musical authenticity—the enduring belief that different types of music originate from, and therefore belong to, a certain group or place. 29 While classical music represents a space where Asians and Asian Americans can attain success—the international prominence of musicians such as Yo-Yo |889 Interlopers in High Culture Ma, Lang Lang, and Midori clearly attest to this fact—it still remains a highly racialized and racializing field of culture. While my interviewees upheld the view that talent and skill are ultimately rewarded and often cited the high representation of Asians and Asian Americans itself as evidence that racial discrimination does not exist in classical music, they nonetheless displayed an astute awareness of the stereotypical assumptions placed upon them as Asian American practitioners of classical music. As the next section demonstrates, this complex racial landscape is part of what allows Asian parents to see classical music as a unique cultural field in which their children can succeed.

Saturdays at Juilliard Pre-College I always avoided Juilliard on Saturdays. All those moms . . . it’s scary.

—Jason, Juilliard College graduate Flanked by the Metropolitan Opera and Avery Fisher Hall in the perform- ing arts complex at Lincoln Center, the Juilliard School stands as a cultural institution with a long and distinguished history of education in the perform- ing arts. The reputation of Juilliard as a premier site for music training led some families to consider the school quite early in their child’s musical career.

Henry, a Chinese immigrant, commented on the status the school holds internationally: “Julliard is so famous. We heard of it in Shanghai already, but we never expect my son will be a student here.” His decision to pursue a business degree and a professional career in the United States was influenced by his desire to “give his son a chance to develop musically.” Juilliard Pre-College shares much in common with other advanced, pre- college music programs and thus provides a glimpse into the subculture of classical music training. Like many other preparatory music schools, Juilliard Pre-College meets only on Saturdays. Students take courses in the core curricu- lum of Western classical and concert music traditions, including performance training, theory, solfège (ear training), and ensemble experience. Prospective students are admitted on the basis of a performance audition. 30 While some students travel on their own to Juilliard Pre-College, for oth- ers, the weekly commute represents a significant trip that involves at least one parent. Many of the parents I interviewed pointed to the long distances they traveled as a measure of their willingness to make the sacrifices necessary for their children to reach their musical goals. Moreover, for some parents, studying at Juilliard was enmeshed in the experience of transnational fam- ily separation and travel. For example, Sookhyun continued living in New | 890 American Quarterly Jersey with her daughter after her husband’s work required him to move back to Korea. Conversely, Wang Wei maintained her residence in Taiwan but traveled monthly to visit her teenage daughter, who lived with friends in Manhattan.

The professional and personal sacrifices undertaken by families typically fell on the shoulders of mothers. Wang Wei, for instance, noted that prior to quitting her job she had less time to help her daughter pursue her musical ambitions, and described herself as a “not so good mother.” Although she viewed the constant travel and family separation as far from ideal, she felt that her maternal duties required such sacrifices: You have to help them, like it or not, so they never come back and say, “Mom, you should have let me do that.” . . . I sacrifice myself and even my career. I’m a business person in Taiwan. I run a company. But now, after two years, my daughter’s here. I quit my company. . . . I think maybe she will feel sorry if she didn’t try. . . . Because you know in Taiwan, maybe I shouldn’t say that, but she’s already the best. Some violinist who taught her before said I shouldn’t limit her, how to say, don’t let her stop here. That’s what I’m thinking. Before that, I’m not so good a mother, because I’m really a business person. Here, Wang Wei draws on gendered and racialized discourses, narrating her actions in the context of being a “good mother” who sacrifices for the sake of the next generation, rather than dreams of the success her daughter might at- tain as a famed soloist. She frames her time and her career as worth sacrificing for her daughter’s chance to achieve success in the global culture of classical music. Like other mothers I interviewed, Wang Wei strove not to appear too boastful or personally driven in her actions. Few of the mothers I interviewed worked full-time outside of the home, a situation some considered a significant sacrifice. 31 Most families were two- parent households that followed traditional gendered divisions of labor, in which fathers represented the primary wage earners.

32 While many parents noted the financial sacrifices that music training placed on the family, they were nonetheless part of middle- and upper-middle-class households that could afford for the mother to limit the amount of work she pursued outside the home. Katherine, a Chinese immigrant from Vietnam, placed her clini- cal practice on hold so she could devote more time to helping her daughter pursue her piano studies. While she deemed this decision to be “worthwhile,” it still presented some internal conflicts: I find myself a little bit cranky. Because I ask myself, what am I doing? I mean I ask myself, I can go back to being a doctor, but why do I hold back my career, tell my kid to make it?

Because it’s that hard. . . . I’m a medical doctor. But now I hold my clinical career. . . . It’s |891 Interlopers in High Culture not because we don’t understand that this is a sort of craziness. Some people say, “Look at you guys, you’re crazy! You guys are too ambitious.” Say whatever you want, but that is not true. When you have a child, they want to approach a goal, they have an ideal. If parents don’t help, I don’t know who will. Like Wang Wei, Katherine explained her actions through the rhetoric of parental duty—the idea that “if parents don’t help, I don’t know who will.” While downplaying her own ambitions and desires, she also clearly believed that her daughter possessed unique musical gifts that demanded development.

As Katherine elaborated: “The part inside [my daughter], the musical part inside her, that’s something. But a teacher did express it in a very fancy way.

It’s one out of how many million have it. We don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t matter because she has it.” This “one out of how many million” quality that Katherine’s daughter purportedly possesses echoes what musicologist Henry Kingsbury describes as “talent”—an elusive trait that holds tremendous import in Western thinking broadly, and in classical musical training specifically. Kingsbury observes: “The fact is that while being ‘talented’ may be positively valued, it nevertheless entails definite moral obligations of musical development. A young person’s talent is an attribution that demands development for the benefit of others as well as for oneself.” 33 Many parents noted the “moral obligation” they felt toward their talented children, whom they frequently described as having a rare and innate feeling for music. Thus, while talent is located in the individual—it is what makes the child singular and exceptional—it is a collective resource for which the family must willingly make sacrifices. Although none of the parents I interviewed began music lessons with the expectation of becoming seriously involved, they felt slowly drawn in by pronouncements of their children’s talent. The gendered pressure to be a “good mother,” coupled with the sense of moral obligation that encircles the idea of musical talent, led my interviewees to depict helping their children musically as a maternal duty.

The parents narrated their own stories through the more accepted tropes of good mothering and generational sacrifice, rather than other reasons, such as personal ambition to see their children become famous. 34 Regardless, it is clear that from the geographical distances they travel to the tremendous sacrifices they make, these “music moms” are integral to the drive and success of their talented children. | 892 American Quarterly Socializing among Parents While their children attend class, parents congregate in the lobby and cafeteria, listen in on lessons or rehearsals, hang out by the practice rooms, or gather to make group trips to Chinatown or Koreatown. Chinese, Korean, and white parents tend to socialize separately at the school. While language barriers, particularly for newer immigrants, no doubt play a role in determining these patterns of socialization, my interviews indicate that notions of racial and ethnic difference were also a factor. Many Asian parents commented on the perceived differences that exist between Chinese and Koreans. For instance, a Korean mother observed that “the Chinese is much more competitive than [the] Korean.” Conversely, a Chinese mother contended that Koreans were merely interested in increasing their cultural status and producing “the next Sarah Chang [a prominent Korean American violinist].” While the Chinese and Korean parents I interviewed were careful not to appear overly ambitious or status-driven themselves, they were more at ease displacing those traits onto other Asian groups.

At the same time, Asian parents de-emphasized distinctions between Chi- nese and Koreans when they discussed how “Asians” differed from “Americans.” In all of my interviews, “American” correlated with white, an affiliation that underscores the close relationship between whiteness and normative Ameri- canness on the U.S. social landscape. Many Chinese and Korean parents cited differences in ideas about family and child rearing as distinguishing them from “Americans.” For example, Jean Hee, a Korean mother, contended that Americans were less willing to make the sacrifices that classical music demanded of the family: I think it’s different, American parents and Asian parents. Asian parents [want] what is good for children. They like to provide as much as they can for their children, even if they sacrifice a little. But American parents, if they too hard have to sacrifice, they don’t do it.

They don’t like it, they’re kind of children themselves a little bit, so individualized. . . . So how can I say, we always count first our children. Whatever is good for them, we like to provide for them as much as we can. Here, Jean Hee drew on discourses of “American” individualism and “Asian” lack of concern for one’s self. Yet, she used this binary formulation to align individualism with childishness and selfishness. In a reversal of Orientalist discourses that infantilize Asians, Jean Hee interpreted “Americans” as being like “children.” |893 Interlopers in High Culture While Jean Hee coded traits such as sacrifice as “Asian,” one did not neces- sarily have to be Asian to embody such characteristics. Joan, a white mother, recalled how her daughter once called her an Asian parent:

One day, my daughter said, “Mom, it seems like you’re an Asian parent” [laughs]. I just said, “Well, I guess you know if that’s what it takes, then yeah, maybe that’s what I am.” . . . I think she said that because I always have extra work for her to do and I push. [My daughter] equates Asian moms with pushiness. Not pushy as a person necessarily, but pushing for what they think is important. For Joan, being “pushy” did not suggest a negative characteristic but, rather, was necessary for her child to achieve success in music. Despite having few actual interactions with Asian parents at Juilliard, Joan was nonetheless pleased to be at a music school with so many like-minded “Asian moms.” Associat- ing “Asians” with competitiveness and quality, Joan sought to align herself symbolically with this racial group through shared cultural practices. While Joan linked the pushiness of “Asian” parenting to the visibility of Asians and Asian Americans in music, Henry, a recent immigrant from Shang- hai, deployed the same rhetoric as a way to claim space and ownership in a cultural field not necessarily seen as his own. He used the polarities of “East” and “West” to defend against the view that Asians are the paradoxical inheri- tors of Western classical music. Henry rhetorically asked in our interview: “If the instrument and music belongs to the West, why [are there] so many Asian kids here at the Pre-College?” He then offered an answer: I think this is related to the style of family. I think that West’s country, the West’s people, West’s family, the parents always stop before the line at forcing the child to do something, like instrument, because their culture, I don’t know how to say, the relationship between the parents and children . . . they can’t force them, right? . . . If the children are not willing to do like that, the West’s country, the parents just give up. They say, “It’s your thing . . .

if you don’t want to, it’s okay, we don’t care.” But East’s people, East’s parents, they always put their dreams on their children. What they want to do, it’s correct. We ask you to do something, you have to follow. Even though Henry acknowledged that the music and instruments are gener- ally recognized to be the cultural property of the West, he coded the activity of learning classical music—the sacrifice and determination it required of parents and children—as an “Asian” cultural trait. Pursuing classical music training became an implicit way of preserving an “Asian” identity in the face of mainstream “American” society. Aligning success at Western classical music | 894 American Quarterly with maintaining “Asian” cultural and family practices, Henry articulated a space for himself and other Asian families in this cultural field.

While many Asian parents readily identified qualities such as focus, hard work, and self-sacrifice as “Asian,” these traits were not perceived to be a natural part of one’s identity but a principle that parents hoped to instill in their children through classical music training. Many of my interviewees cited learning discipline, diligence, and persistence—qualities viewed as translat- ing, not coincidentally, into high academic achievement—as critical reasons for enrolling their children in music lessons. 35 Again, Henry’s remarks are illustrative: I think you will find that most of the children, if they learn an instrument, they don’t have any big problems when they are learning science, mathematics, and something. It’s easy, easy for them! . . . Because if you have this kind of discipline, the concentration to overcome obstacle, do something over and over again, then you will know, “Oh! If I put in every kind of effort, then I will win.” . . . By playing the piano, they can feel like, “Oh, this music is very beautiful,” and in the meantime get this good training and art for the future. Henry perceived discipline and concentration not as attributes that Asians inherently possess, or traits conferred through an inherited cultural apparatus, but qualities to be learned and repeatedly practiced. Participating in classical music allowed children both to develop aesthetic tastes—to experience and appreciate “very beautiful” music—and to hone specific cultural traits that would prime them for success. 36 While parents like Henry cited learning such qualities as discipline and sacrifice as key reasons for enrolling their children in music training, such an explanation does little to illuminate why classical music represents such an appealing vehicle for transmitting those values. The next section explores this central question by showing how parents’ ideas about class and cultural capital influence the decisions that they make. In short, my interviewees selectively mobilize ideas associated with being “Asian,” “American,” and “cultured” to consolidate a sense of class and racial identity projected through “high” cultural and intellectual tastes.

“A Very Prestige Kind of Thing” For the Asian parents I interviewed, their understanding of classical music as elite and prestigious was informed by the historical enmeshment of music and international relations of power in their countries of origin, and by the trans- national travel of Western concepts of culture. Many parents viewed amassing |895 Interlopers in High Culture the cultural capital of classical music as one way to measure socioeconomic gains, and broadly linked the growing popularity of classical music among Chinese and Koreans with the economic ascension of East Asian nations.

Such a connection emerged clearly in my interview with Sookhyun, a recent Korean immigrant. She noted that, although she studied some piano during her youth, this was uncommon for those of her generation since “my country was not rich enough to educate everyone in piano.” As she elaborated, those involved in classical music were “mostly more educated people . . . and more money. You have to have instruments. And at that time, most families could not afford that.” 37 While she did not listen to much classical music during her childhood, Sookhyun began frequenting spaces specifically devoted to doing so while in college: At that time, our age, classical music was very special, a very prestige kind of thing. I mean somebody who is very special can do it. We thought like that. It’s not like regular people cannot enjoy or have, but our generation, we really liked to hear the classical music, we had some kind of place [laughs], we can actually sit and listen to music. You know, like tea rooms or something? But it’s just for listener. Classical listeners. We pay and then we go in there and listen to music. The tea rooms described above provided places for Sookhyun and her friends to distinguish themselves by consuming this “very special” music. Her percep- tion of classical music as a “very prestige kind of thing” continued to influence her sense of class and cultural identity in the United States. Parents who did not grow up listening to classical music described gain- ing an appreciation for the music through their child’s musical activities. For example, Christine noted that she had little exposure to classical music grow- ing up in Hong Kong and mainly listened to Chinese popular music. This changed, however, over the course of her child’s musical development: I learn it from my kid. . . . [Now] I know a little bit about technique, and the color, and when I listen to classical music, I can understand better. You know, I don’t know how to understand classical music before . . . Even if I listen, I don’t feel anything. But now, I can usually listen [and think] beautiful sound, play very well, or technique, those kinds of things. So for me, I feel advantage. I can understand better. Reinforcing a cultural hierarchy that places popular music below classical music, Christine now felt herself capable of understanding subtle differences between musical techniques and styles. She articulated the deeper understand- ing she gained for classical music as an “advantage”—an unexpected cultural | 896 American Quarterly benefit accrued through her child. Christine, as well as her child, accumulated cultural capital through her family’s investment in musical training.

Interestingly, the declining interest and value paid to high cultural forms in the contemporary U.S. context served to fortify a sense of distinction for Asian parents. Indeed, the belief that most Americans do not appreciate clas- sical music allowed Asian parents to interpret their own interest in this elite yet marginalized cultural field as setting themselves apart from—and indeed above—mainstream American norms and values. For instance, Mrs. Lai ar- ticulated a hierarchical distinction between herself and Americans: “Americans normally [are] like fast food, fast-paced society, people don’t want to spend the effort, take the time to love classical music. They love something instant.

. . . I don’t know, maybe it’s the Taiwanese standard, like we are more scholar type of family, or more pay attention to culture; we like to keep a higher so- ciety.” Mrs. Lai viewed her interest in scholarly and “cultured” pursuits such as classical music as distinguishing her from the massified culture of instant gratification she perceived most Americans as inhabiting. She held little inter- est in assimilating into the “fast food” culture of America, aiming instead to affiliate with what she perceived to be universalizing modes of elite culture. The perception that Americans enjoy “instant” gratification and Asians prefer a “higher society” surfaced in many of my interviews with Asian par- ents. One can discern a sense of superiority emerging in Nami’s articulation of the difference between Asians and Americans through her comparison of band versus orchestra: Not just here [at Juilliard], but also in orchestra, even public school, so many members in orchestra are Asian kids, because American kids, they do not have the discipline. They have parties, they have play dates, they have soccer games, outside activities, lots of activities outside. But for music you have to sacrifice. American families cannot do it. . . . So there is orchestra group and band group. Band you don’t have to practice a lot, but it’s easy to play. . . . You see more American kids in band group. But Asian kids more statistically, you see in orchestra, because they have discipline so well. Nami’s understanding of band as easy and orchestra as rigorous helped facilitate a process of socialization into the United States through a perceived sense of cultural superiority. Thus, while American families might regard play dates and soccer games as necessary to create “well-rounded” children, in the eyes of Asian families, these activities neither held cultural capital nor encouraged children to understand the importance of sacrifice and discipline. Nami seemed content to yield to American families the multitude of “activities outside” that, in her view, did not require hard work and sacrifice. |897 Interlopers in High Culture These remarks about the professed superiority of Asian parents’ work ethic and cultural sophistication should not be read as mere elaborations of racial or ethnic conceit. Rather, they must be seen as negotiations of socioeconomic and educational status by individuals living in a nation in which racial dis- crimination and linguistic limitations continue to represent real economic and social barriers. Asian parents used their involvement in music as evidence of their intellect and edification—attributes which, as racialized immigrants who do not necessarily speak English fluently, they are not always perceived as holding. While white and Asian parents alike perceived themselves to be distinct from the American mainstream through their intense involvement in classical music, Asian parents faced additional racial barriers converting their cultural capital into other forms of social or economic capital. 38 Indeed, while the Asian parents I interviewed maintained a familiar rhetoric about the democratic promise of the United States—and refused to linger on the difficulties they confronted—references to obstacles they faced as racialized immigrants nonetheless surfaced in our interviews. Jean Hee, for example, referenced the downward mobility experienced by skilled and educated Asians immigrating to the United States: “The parents are more educated, the Asian parents. They are here, but they’re not doing the—how can I say—they are kind of middle class here, or lower middle class. But when they are in their own country they belong to the high class, more educated. The only thing is that language is a problem here.” While Jean Hee mentioned only language as being an obstacle, we can contextualize the experiences she describes within a broader understanding of race and language discrimination in U.S. settings.

Investing in musical practices aligned with high cultural distinction allowed “high class” and “more educated” Asian parents to project social identities that affirmed what they felt to be their rightful place on the American social landscape. At the same time, Jean Hee’s comments reflect an anxiety that the accumulation of cultural capital by upwardly mobile Asian immigrants will not prevent a demotion in social and economic status in the United States. While maintaining an association between classical music and cultural prestige, many parents also acknowledged that their involvement in music did not necessarily translate into perceptions of high cultural status in the United States. For instance, Nami noted how “Americans” sometimes perceived her actions less as representing an interest in the aesthetic value of music, and more as evidence of an overzealous drive to push her kids to achieve success.

She, too, worried about the unintended consequences that could result from placing overly high expectations on her children. Nonetheless, despite express- ing ambivalence about how her parenting style might place undue burdens or | 898 American Quarterly expectations on her children, Nami continued to affirm what she perceived to be its positive results: “Asian kids, even here, second, third generation, they do so well. Especially in music.” The fame achieved by musicians such as Kyung-wha Chung, Midori, and Yo-Yo Ma help create the perception that classical music is a site where Asians and Asian Americans can achieve success and recognition on an international scale. In other words, Asian parents perceive classical music to be a field wherein their children face fewer barriers and talent can potentially be fully rewarded.

Such a sentiment emerges in Sookhyun’s comments: I think maybe in Korea, there’s not many people who are famous worldwide. But a few classical musicians, they are very famous worldwide. And they think, that kind of person is very special . . . [we think] they succeed. So if somebody wants to be real famous worldwide, there’s not many chances in other fields, but in music they see some few people and they think maybe they can be like that. And they all dream like that, I think. And they think that their children has so much talent, and if they put much effort, then maybe they can be like them.

Do you dream like that too?

I think so, I think so [laughs]. Yeah, and also they have so many difficulties living in America.

Being minorities, they have to be somebody. They have to have their profession, or have to be somebody so everybody cannot ignore them and they can have their right treatment from somebody. Here, we can read Sookhyun’s remarks as giving expression to the aspirational desires sought but not always met by racialized immigrants living in the United States. While she demarcates classical music as one of few fields in which Koreans have achieved success globally, she locates her remarks within a spe- cific understanding of the difficulties that minorities encounter living in the United States. Sookhyun’s assertion that one has to “be somebody” to garner respect and “right treatment” reveals an astute awareness of racial hierarchies operating in the United States, including the fact that racialized minorities continue to encounter difficulties and face discrimination. In this way, Asian parents accumulate economic and cultural capital in an attempt to compensate for invisibility: “So everybody cannot ignore them.” Sookhyun linked the efforts of Asian parents pushing their children to attain musical success with the desire for recognition and visibility in an elite cultural field that circulates within and beyond the United States. In so doing, she demonstrates the ways in which Asian parents mobilize the potentials of Western classical music in their efforts to negotiate the racialized terrain of the United States. |899 Interlopers in High Culture Conclusion When Mrs. Kim, cited at the outset of the essay, states that “first priority is Yoon Jee,” it is worth noting that her daughter cringes in response. Yoon Jee’s discomfort underscores the fact that her mother’s narrative does not neces- sarily match her own and suggests the degree to which Mrs. Kim’s comments evoke disquieting stereotypes about racial difference. Indeed, the “music moms” that I interviewed drew upon and reinforced sweeping generaliza- tions about the sacrifice and discipline of “Asians” and the individualism and simple-mindedness of “Americans.” However, these articulations do not represent a mere reproduction of dominant ideologies. Rather, they should also be understood as an engagement with, and reformulation of, a range of racialized beliefs placed upon Asians—as model minorities, as “yellow peril” masses overtaking fields in which they implicitly do not belong, and as racialized immigrants unable to speak the language of English and Western high culture with fluency, ease, or ownership. Asian parents selectively draw on these discourses to position themselves, their tastes, and their parenting styles as superior to those of Americans. In the process, they reframe learning classical music—a Western cultural system long imbricated in global struggles over power, modernization, and imperialism—as an “Asian” cultural practice.

They recast Asians and Asian Americans as the rightful inheritors of this field of high culture, and resignify the pursuit of classical music as an implicit means of preserving an “Asian” identity in the face of mass American culture.

For the middle- and upper-class Asian parents I interviewed, assimilation and inclusion into “America” did not appear to be their ultimate goal. Rather, they sought to insert themselves and their children into a universalizing field of elite culture that they believed would generate the greatest degree of cul- tural capital for their investment. Race and class anxieties, and an awareness of their status as racialized subjects in the nation, underpinned the choices that they made. Asian parents sought to levy the cultural capital they gained through classical music against the racist structures that made class demotion and invisibility a reality that they experienced as racialized immigrants living in the United States. Ironically, it might be the increasing marginality of classical music in the United States that has allowed Asians and Asian Americans greater access to, and visibility within, this field of culture over the past few decades. Many musicians I interviewed noted the shrinking and graying audiences for classical music and the diminished cultural value and relevance the music holds for most contemporary Americans. In this light, it is worth questioning whether Asian | 900 American Quarterly parents misread the amount of cultural capital that can be accrued through classical music training. It may be that the increasing numbers of Asians and Asian Americans involved in classical music has merely re-entrenched particular racial ideologies. For, despite the many exceptional Asian American musicians who have achieved a great deal of success, and are praised for their passionate and powerful playing, classical music continues to represent a site wherein familiar stereotypes about Asian Americans—as technicians, imitators, and disciplined workers—persist. These beliefs gain traction given the long hours of practice that classical music training requires.

The multiple narratives generated by and about Asian American musicians and “music moms” expose the complex ways in which race, class, and cultural hierarchy circulate in the U.S. culture of classical music. If, on the surface, Asian and Asian American participation in classical music threatens to reinforce stereotypical notions about essentialized racial differences, further examination reveals the ways in which the participants themselves actively mobilize these notions in their own struggles over power, transcultural exchange, class, and identity. Refusing their status as interlopers, Asian American musicians and “music moms” assert their own cultural and personal agency in the face of racialized discourses imposed upon them and, in the process, reformulate the boundaries of Western “high” culture and their place within it.

Notes My thanks to Tori Langland, Susette Min, Nicole Stanton, Kim Alidio, and Tamar Barzel for read- ing drafts of this essay. I am also thankful for the helpful feedback I received from the junior faculty workshop at the Center for Ethnic Studies and the Arts (CESA) at the University of Iowa, Curtis Marez, the American Quarterly editorial board, and the two anonymous reviewers.

1. Robert Lipsyte and Lois B. Morris, “Teenagers Playing Music, Not Tennis,” New York Times, June 27, 2002, E1, E5.

2. References to the “Asian” (or “Oriental”) mother in classical music began appearing in U.S. mainstream presses by the 1980s, when the enrollment of East Asian and Asian American students increased at music schools, particularly on the East and West coasts. See Leslie Rubinstein, “Oriental Musicians Come of Age” New York Times, November 23, 1980, SM8, who observes that the “Oriental” mother has begun to replace the “Jewish” mother in classical music. Space limitations prevent a fuller exami- nation of the parallels between the racialized rhetoric of overzealous parenting used to describe the “Asian” and “Jewish” mother within and beyond the realm of classical music, a topic explored in my larger project.

3. See Laura Van Tuyl, “Asian Performers Abound on the American Music Scene,” Christian Science Monitor, June 18, 1991, 10; Barbara Jepson, “Asian Stars of Classical Music,” Wall Street Journal, Janu- ary 2, 1991, A5; and Anthony Day, “A Shift in Composition,” Los Angeles Times, April 3, 1994.

4. The precise racial demographic of music schools can sometimes be difficult to ascertain since many, including Juilliard Pre-College, track citizenship status rather than race and ethnicity in their student population. In 2000–2001, East Asians made up the largest number of non-U.S. citizens enrolled |901 Interlopers in High Culture at Juilliard Pre-College; of the 297 students enrolled, 19 percent were Korean citizens, 5 percent Chinese, 3 percent Taiwanese, and 3 percent Japanese. This data is based on student demographic information obtained from the Juilliard Pre-College office.

5. While my essay focuses on middle- and upper-middle-class Asian immigrant families, there is, of course, greater economic diversity in the post-1965 Asian immigrant population. For an astute analysis of the impact that American immigration legislation has had on Asian American communities, see Bill Ong Hing, Making and Remaking Asian America through Immigration Policy (Stanford, Calif.:

Stanford University Press, 1993).

6. During 2001–2002, I conducted thirty oral interviews with Asian immigrant parents and Asian American musicians in New York City. Unless otherwise cited, all quotations attributed to musicians and parents come from these oral interviews. I use literal transcriptions from my interviews, with grammatical errors left intact, to underscore that many of my interviewees were Asian immigrants with fluency in more than one language and cultural context.

7. Throughout this essay, I use the term “Asian” parent—a descriptor used by the parents I interviewed— despite the ways that this generalizing label overlooks ethnic particularity within the Asian American population, refers only to Chinese and Koreans, and downplays the fact that many of the parents I interviewed had lived in the United States for many years. In some measure, I understand the parents’ self-identification as “Asian” as signaling an awareness of how the American context homogenizes the specificities of their national and ethnic origins.

8. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (1979; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).

9. Charles Ward, “Korean Violinist Has Stellar Debut,” Houston Chronicle, July 3, 2000; James Oestreich, “The Sound of New Music Is Often Chinese,” New York Times, April 1, 2001; Oestreich, “Music Works Its (Western) Wiles in China,” New York Times, May 25, 2003; and Robert Maycock, “Is Classical Music Really Headed Toward Extinction?” The Independent, April 26, 2005.

10. See Joseph Kahn and Daniel Wakin, “Classical Music Looks toward China with Hope,” New York Times, April 3, 2007; Kahn and Wakin, “Increasingly in the West, the Players are from the East,” New York Times, April 4, 2007; and Wakin, “Pilgrim with an Oboe, Citizen of the World,” New York Times, April 8, 2007.

11. For insightful analyses of Western music in East Asia, see Bruno Nettl, The Western Impact on World Music (New York: Schirmer Books, 1985); Richard Kraus, Pianos and Politics in China: Middle-Class Ambitions and the Struggle Over Western Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Ury Eppstein, The Beginnings of Western Music in Meiji Era Japan (Lewistown, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1994); Barbara Mittler, Dangerous Tunes (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997); Okon Hwang, “Western Art Music in Korea: Everyday Experience and Cultural Critique” (PhD diss., Wesleyan University, 2001), E. Taylor Atkins, Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001); Andrew Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Identity in the Chinese Jazz Age (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001); Sheila Melvin and Jindong Cai, Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese (New York: Algora Publishing, 2004); Yayoi Uno Everett and Frederick Lau, eds., Locating East Asia in Western Art Music (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004); and Mari Yoshihara, Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007).

12. Eppstein, Beginnings of Western Music, 5.

13. Atkins, Blue Nippon, 49–50.

14. Ibid., 24.

15. Kraus, Pianos and Politics in China, x.

16. Hwang, “Western Art Music in Korea,” 78.

17. See Melvin and Cai, Rhapsody in Red, 307–13; and Kraus, Piano and Politics in China, 25.

18. Everett, “Intercultural Synthesis in Postwar Western Art Music,” in Locating East Asia in Western Art Music, ed. Everett and Lau, 8.

19. See Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performance and Listening (Middletown: University of Wesleyan Press, 1998), and Melvin and Cai, Rhapsody in Red, 301–2.

20. Chinese (from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China) and Koreans are the two largest Asian groups repre- sented at Juilliard Pre-College specifically, as well as within classical music training in the United States more broadly. I see this as reflecting, in part, wider post-1965 immigration patterns; classical music training remains a largely immigrant family practice, and in the contemporary period, relatively fewer | 902 American Quarterly Japanese (in comparison to Chinese and Koreans) immigrate to the United States. My interviewees also pointed to the longer history and stronger infrastructure for classical music in Japan, and sug- gested this as another reason why fewer families migrate to the United States specifically for classical music training. Finally, we can attribute the heavily East Asian demographic of classical music to the deployment of Western classical music in Japan and the influence of that nation in disseminating the music to China and Korea.

21. Quoted in Joseph McLellan, “Do Unseen Musicians Get Fairer Hearings?” Washington Post, July 13, 1997. Significantly, blind auditions have led to a 30 to 55 percent increase in women winning orchestra positions since major symphonies began adopting the practice. Still, such practices make it difficult to implement policies to increase the number of underrepresented minorities (particularly African Americans and Latinos) in symphony positions and do little to dismantle barriers faced prior to the audition process.

22. The complex and often unspoken hierarchies of race, gender, and nation that impact how listeners hear and evaluate musical performance merits further examination than space allows here. For an astute analysis of the gendered and racialized Asian American body in musical performance, see Deborah Wong, Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music (New York: Routledge, 2004).

23. Charles Elliot, “Race and Gender as Factors in Judgments of Musical Performance,” Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education 12.7 (Winter 1995/96): 50–56.

24. Much has been written about the ideological function of model minority discourses, and how these discourses implicate Asian Americans in broader ideologies about “deficient” minorities—specifically blacks and Latinos—and the meritocratic nature of U.S. society. See, for instance, Keith Osajima, “Asian Americans as the Model Minority: An Analysis of the Popular Press Image in the 1960s and 1980s,” in Promises and Prospects for Asian American Studies, ed. Gary Okihiro (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 65-74.

25. David Palumbo-Liu astutely analyzes in Asian/America: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999) how the U.S. mass media activated “yellow peril” discourses during the 1980s and early 1990s to describe the escalating ascendancy of Japan. Such media reports helped resolve U.S. anxieties about Japanese success by positioning Japan’s conformist culture against a U.S. culture of individuality, originality, and creativity.

26. For a general sense of the “crisis” that permeates the U.S. classical music industry, see Emanuel Ax, “Fading Out,” New York Times, March 17, 2002; Charles Wuorinen, “A Golden Age Is Long Past,” New York Times, March 17, 2002; and Greg Sandow, “Behind the Tuxedo Curtain,” Village Voice, September 17, 1996.

27. For an astute analysis of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, see Mina Yang, “East Meets West in the Concert Hall: Asians and Classical Music in the Century of Imperialism, Post-Colonialism, and Multiculturalism,” Asian Music 38.1 (Winter/Spring 2007): 1–30.

28. Over the past few years, the Ying Quartet, a string quartet composed of four Chinese American siblings, have programmed a “musical dim sum”—short selections by contemporary Chinese compos- ers that, as they put it, explore their cultural heritage; their recently released CD Dim Sum (Telarc Records, 2008) records these musical efforts. The “return to roots” discourse is not limited to Asian Americans. Consider, for example, cellist Matt Haimovitz’s CD Goulash (Oxingale Records, 2005), which explores his Romanian and Middle Eastern ancestry.

29. See Martin Stokes, ed., Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place (New York:

Berg, 1994), for the relationship between musical authenticity, place, and race, and Ingrid Monson’s Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) for the ways that jazz musicians strategically negotiate the tension between universal and ethnically specific viewpoints in music.

30. During the academic year 2000–2001, the overall acceptance rate for students was 27 percent. During that same year, 39 percent of the students were on financial aid. The school tuition of $7,000 per year was only part of the cost of music education, which can include instruments, summer programs, travel, and additional lessons.

31. I interviewed only one single mother, a woman who worked at a Chinese beauty salon with her own mother. Many parents singled her out to me as having a very difficult life. In the other families I interviewed, the fathers held professional occupations in fields such as business, engineering, technol- ogy, and medicine. |903 Interlopers in High Culture 32. The patriarchal structure and assumptions followed in these families might account for the reason that boys in particular were discouraged from pursuing music professionally. Many of the male musicians I interviewed discussed the intense resistance they faced from their parents about their decision to become a musician (although some women faced conflicts as well).

33. Henry Kingsbury, Music, Talent, and Performance: A Conservatory Cultural System (Philadelphia:

Temple University Press, 1988), 76.

34. While voicing strong disapproval of couples who lived apart for the sake of their child’s musical training, Jean Hee also questioned whether other issues might be at play: “Maybe the relationship is not that good, or maybe there are mother-in-law or some other family problems, so [the wife] just gets away from the situation.” While the topic of family or marital strife did not arise in any of my interviews, I did not expect they would, given language limitations (particularly with newer immigrants) and the relatively structured setting of the interview.

35. The emphasis on the social value and intellectual function of classical music has wide circulation in the United States—from claims that playing Mozart to infants can help stimulate brain activity to the oft-cited statistic (in music circles, at least) that music majors hold the highest acceptance rates to medical school. Classical music, in this sense, is valorized as a vehicle for educational achievement and social mobility, rather than a desired profession.

36. Of the seventy-six graduating seniors in 2000–2001, approximately half went on to attend a college or university rather than a music conservatory, suggesting that many Juilliard Pre-College students do not necessarily pursue music as their eventual profession.

37. A few parents also linked their involvement in classical music to their Christian faith, noting that their first exposure to the music was in church.

38. See Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), for an astute discussion of the limitations that upwardly mobile Chinese transnational subjects encounter in attempting to convert economic capital into high social standing in the United States.