ABSTRACT
ASIans, 1Ilduding people from the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and East Asia, are rhe newest immigrants to arrive in rhe United States, beginning with the Chmcsc, and soon after, the Japanese, who were brought to work in the mines during the great Gold Rushes of the mid-to late nineteenth century and to help complete the transcontinental railway. Setding primarily on the West Coast, in California, Oregon, and Washington, many brought with them classical music traditions h undreds of years old, as well as ancient belief systems, religiOUS practices, and popular musICS that they, in some cases, sought to replicate in the New World. The Chinese in Californ ia, for example, still regularly perform classical Chinese o pera for new immigrants as weU as third-and fourth-generation Chinese Americans, and instruments such as the Japanese koto and shamisen are regularly taught in Japanese American communities in California, Hawai'i, and elsewhere. Immigrants from India and Pakistan, as well as late-twentieth-century arrivals, such as the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Lao, and Indonesians, have begun to establish communities large enough to support traditional musical activities in the United Stares as well as to join other Asian Americans who have ventured into Western popular and classical music activities.
