To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, we’re cataloging 25 objects that define the country’s history.
“A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle of Asians in America” was one of the first recognized musical albums expressing Asian American identity. The 1973 work — preserved at the Smithsonian Institution — combines elements of folk, jazz and blues. It’s often considered a blend of political statements within a collective art project.
Sojin Kim, curator of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, details the album’s legacy and place in American history.
4 questions with Sojin Kim
Can you tell us about the artists and the music?
“There were three artists who made up the group that recorded ‘Grain of Sand,’ and they were Nobuko — also known as JoAnne — Miyamoto, Chris Iijima, and William “Charlie” Chin, who were in their 20s and 30s at the time in the 1970s in New York.
“What they were doing with this album was creating music that told the stories of their families, of their communities, and of their lives. It was music that they had never heard anyone else produce or sing before.”
What did they hope their music would inspire?
“This is a time when there’s a lot coming to a head. The U.S. is still in Southeast Asia. There’s anti-war movements. There’s ethnic consciousness movements. There’s civil rights movements. And so there’s a lot of this in the air that they are a part of and being nourished from and contributing to.
“When you think of the early 1970s, too, this is also a moment when people tended to think about the presence of Asian Americans in a really limited way. Asians were people from countries where the U.S. had had conflicts or been at war with during the entire 20th century: Japan, China, Korea and Southeast Asia.
“I think that people had this idea that Asians were foreign. They were different. They were from cultures that were distinct and maybe at odds with American culture. This is only a decade and a half after Japanese Americans from the West Coast were incarcerated in camps during World War II.
“I think the other limited perception that people had of Asians during this period was that they were a model minority. They’re quiet. They’re hardworking. They’re passive. They don’t cause trouble. They’re good at science. They’re good at medicine. And so I think one of the things that their music does is express the fact that there is more to Asian Americans than this perception of us as foreigners, as newcomers and as model minorities.”
How are you affected personally by this album as an Asian American?
“As someone who was a really little kid in the early 1970s, I love that there were these young people in their 20s and 30s who were thinking big thoughts and who were idealistic and who were looking for common cause and collaboration with people.
“Also, I think the music is great. I think the lyrics are clever and smart. I think their melodies, their rhythms and their harmonies are catchy. I think they were all really great artists.”
What is the legacy of the album?
“If we were to think about American protest music, an important tradition in American music and American life, ‘A Grain of Sand’ helps broaden how we think about that: Who makes this kind of music? What is the narrative content of the songs? And what stories are told through this?
“They were also trying to connect themselves and their present to a long history. So when people may have perceived someone with an Asian face as being an immigrant or a newcomer, they were saying, ‘Look, we are the children of people who helped build important parts of the United States.’ Everything from the agricultural industry in the state of California to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad.
“What’s important in this 250th anniversary year of the United States is that they’re connecting themselves to a long history and showing that their presence is a deep one.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Will Walkey produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Walkey also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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