Beginning with the observation that there is no unifying Asian American genre of music, it is not immediately clear how racial identity influences the music Asian Americans create. Music, like all other forms of cultural production, is simultaneously a product of its time yet also a potential disruptor that can influence our attachments to racial identification. With such strong ties between music, activism, representation, performance, and gender expression, it’s paramount to study music as a tool in shaping what it means to be Asian American.

However, within Asian American Studies, not enough has been written about music’s role in establishing Asian American identity. Scholars such as Deborah Wong, Su Zheng, Grace Wang, and Amy Stillman have addressed this lacuna through their instrumental work, but previous scholarship can mostly be classified as ethnomusicology through its focus on the social and historical forces at play in the lives of Asian American musicians. While an ethnographic approach provides key insights on a macro level, I posit that formal analysis through music theory could also help illuminate how Asian American musicians might explore their racial identity through choices in harmony, rhythm, timbre, instrumentation, etc. Are there musical elements that frequently occur in the music Asian Americans create that reflect (and comment on) shared experiences or cultural affiliations? In this paper, I analyze songs by Mitski and Rina Sawayama through harmonic analysis in order to demonstrate the potential of utilizing music theory in the characterization of Asian American racialization.