Growing nationalist thinking and anti-immigration legislation in American politics today calls for a critical historicizing of the continuing ambiguities of U.S. citizenry and notions of what it is to be an American. The identity crisis of Nisei-second generation Japanese Americans-resulted from the complex intersection of America's racialized ideology toward immigrants, California's virulent anti-Asian agitation, and the economic and political power struggles between the United States and Japan in gaining dominance of the Pacific region. For many Nisei music served to reinforce their American identity during the tense years leading up to World War II. Swing music, popular music of the day, sparked a dance craze during the 1930s and 1940s among young Americans. Because Nisei were coming of age during this period, I chose to study the influence of popular music on the formation of their identity. Interviews with West Coast Nisei about the role of music in their lives serve to test my premise.
