If Colors Could be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education
A deeply personal and scholarly exploration of how race and ethnicity shape the ways we learn, teach, and experience music.

If Colors Could Be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education is a groundbreaking collection of firsthand accounts by music educators, artists, activists, and students from the Global Majority. These deeply personal narratives explore how race and ethnicity shape experiences in music learning, making, and teaching.

From stories of childhood discovery to reflections on navigating racial identity in the classroom, these voices paint a complex and vivid portrait of music education in the United States. Going beyond a collection of research studies, this book embraces self-reflective storytelling as a legitimate and essential method of inquiry, offering a scholarly mosaic of lived experience.

By centering voices often marginalized in academia, If Colors Could Be Heard challenges dominant narratives and reimagines music education through a lens of equity, identity, and belonging. A must-read for students, educators, and researchers committed to fostering an inclusive and just musical future.
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If Colors Could be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education
A deeply personal and scholarly exploration of how race and ethnicity shape the ways we learn, teach, and experience music.

If Colors Could Be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education is a groundbreaking collection of firsthand accounts by music educators, artists, activists, and students from the Global Majority. These deeply personal narratives explore how race and ethnicity shape experiences in music learning, making, and teaching.

From stories of childhood discovery to reflections on navigating racial identity in the classroom, these voices paint a complex and vivid portrait of music education in the United States. Going beyond a collection of research studies, this book embraces self-reflective storytelling as a legitimate and essential method of inquiry, offering a scholarly mosaic of lived experience.

By centering voices often marginalized in academia, If Colors Could Be Heard challenges dominant narratives and reimagines music education through a lens of equity, identity, and belonging. A must-read for students, educators, and researchers committed to fostering an inclusive and just musical future.
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If Colors Could be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education

If Colors Could be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education

If Colors Could be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education

If Colors Could be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education

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$124.95 
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Overview

A deeply personal and scholarly exploration of how race and ethnicity shape the ways we learn, teach, and experience music.

If Colors Could Be Heard: Narratives About Racial Identity in Music Education is a groundbreaking collection of firsthand accounts by music educators, artists, activists, and students from the Global Majority. These deeply personal narratives explore how race and ethnicity shape experiences in music learning, making, and teaching.

From stories of childhood discovery to reflections on navigating racial identity in the classroom, these voices paint a complex and vivid portrait of music education in the United States. Going beyond a collection of research studies, this book embraces self-reflective storytelling as a legitimate and essential method of inquiry, offering a scholarly mosaic of lived experience.

By centering voices often marginalized in academia, If Colors Could Be Heard challenges dominant narratives and reimagines music education through a lens of equity, identity, and belonging. A must-read for students, educators, and researchers committed to fostering an inclusive and just musical future.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781835951675
Publisher: Intellect, Limited
Publication date: 10/28/2025
Series: Contemporary Music Making and Learning
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Christopher Cayari is an associate professor of music at Purdue University West Lafayette-Indianapolis, Indiana.


Jason D. Thompson is an inaugural faculty member at the nation’s first Black Honors College at California State University, Sacramento.


Rekha S. Rajan is an award-winning classically trained singer who has performed in musicals, operas, and operettas across the United States, and her bestselling children’s literature books encourage young readers to explore the world around them through the arts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Painting Wondrous Tunes with Stories by People of Color
   Christopher Cayari, Jason D. Thompson, and Rekha S. Rajan 

Section I: Intersectionality 
Orientation I: Intersectionality and Music Education: Why Identity Matters, Especially for People of Color 
   Christopher Cayari (徐晓兰)
1. "From minor to Major feelings, I am more than just Stop Asian Hate” 20
   Alice A. Tsui (徐晓兰) 
2. In Her Voice: (Re)Visioning Race and Gender in the Music Classroom through the Lens of Black Feminist Pedagogy
   Paula Grissom Broughton 
3. Coming Out as Asian: Multiplying Identity and Intersectionality 
   Christopher Cayari 
4. Self-Made?: Representation, Tokenism, and Finding Autonomy as an Educator 
   Marcus Moone 
5. The Hip-Hop Therapeutic Education of a Single Mother 
   Terriee Pope 

Section II: Forging New Pathways 
Orientation II: Forging Cultural Pathways in Music Learning, Making, and Teaching 
   Jason D. Thompson and Rekha S. Rajan 
6. Searching Somewhere Over the Rainbow for a Home in Choral Music Education 
   Dr. Kiernan M. Steiner 
7. Teaching Music in Tkaronto: The Relationship Between Indigeneity and Place of Practice 
   Joyce Jing Yee Yip and Lee Cheng 
8. My Journey and My Music: Breaking the Hegemony of the Music Classroom in Hong Kong
   Chi Ying Lam 
9. inVISIBLE: A Journey to (re)claim, (re)embrace, and (re)settle 
   Shuk-Ki Wong 
10. Between the Piano and the Gayageum: From Reversal to Empowerment 
   Sangmi Kang (강상미) 
 
Section III: Epiphanies 
Orientation III: Epiphanies: How Reflection and Realization Influence Our Musical Experiences 
   Christopher Cayari 
11. SPOTLIGHT 
   Rekha S. Rajan 
12: Giving Myself Permission to be a Musician 
   Tina Huynh
13: “Just look at Anthony!”: Searching for identity, teaching music 
   Anthony Cao 
14: Ni de aquí ni de allá: The In-Betweenness of AfroLatinidad
   Marjoris Regus 
15: Silent No More: A Vietnamese American Adoptee Speaks About Music Education And Who I Wronged   
   Kính T. Vũ 
 
Section IV: Triumph and Excellence 
Orientation IV: Triumph and Excellence
   Jason D. Thompson 
17: Through the Looking Glass: An Asian American Music Educator’s Counter-Story 
   Mindy H. Park 
18: Remixing the “Good News”: Using Music to Sustain Faith 
   Latasha Thomas-Durrell 
19: Hitting the Music Educational Jackpot: Directing the Marching Band at a Historic Las Vegas School 
   Alfonzo V. Kimbrough 

Section V: Reimagining Music Education 
Orientation V: Reimagining Music Education: Challenges, Changes and Triumphs 
   Rekha S. Rajan 
20: The Diversity Within: An Intersectional Challenge/Opportunity 
   Darrin Thornton 
21: “Elite” Vocal Music Education: Where Perceived Liberalism Doesn’t Cut It 
   Taylor Masamitsu 
22: The Gospel of Musical Inclusion 
   Jason D. Thompson 
23: Musicking With the Other 80%
   Alberto Vargas 
24: I, Too, Wear The Mask 
   Quinton D. Parker 
25: “I Can See Clearly Now:” Confronting Stereotypes and Assumptions about Urban Music Education
   G. Preston Wilson
 
Epilogue: Carrying the Fire!! of a New Music Education—Devoted to Musicians of the Global Majority 
   Christopher Cayari
Index

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