Background
Wong was born on the East Coast of the United States, and now lives in California.
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Deborah Wong
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Wong later attended the University of Michigan where she earned her master"s degree and then her Doctor of Philosophy in 1991.
Career
Her scholarship is in the field of ethnomusicology, where she is known for her studies of Asian American and Thai music She identifies herself as Chinese-American, Asian-American, and multi-ethnic. Wong earned her Bachelor of Arts in anthropology and music at the University of Pennsylvania in 1982.
Wong has studied Taiko, Japanese American drumming, and is part of Satori Daiko, a performing group in Los Los Angeles
Taiko provides a space that allows women to talk about their performances together and talk about what drumming provides them. The physicality and powerful sounds of Taiko are what moved Wong to discover drumming.
She said that music practices, like Taiko, have helped to build community. About 75% of Taiko players are women, most of them Asian American.
Wong has said that Asian American women come from family environments where they are encouraged to be quiet and respectful, and Taiko is a way of breaking out of this silence — musically, socially, and politically.
Professor Wong has long been interested in As an ethnomusicologist, she focuses on Asian American performance and the way it intersects with the racial imagination in America. Race is very much a part of our lives, America has racist structures that drive it, and looking at race when studying music is a different approach. She used a $10,000 grant from the California Council for the Humanities to help fund the research for the site, www.asianamericanriverside.ucr.edu.
She wanted to spread the word about the little-known story of the city"s lively Asian community.
"Asian American Riverside" is a resource for local schools and the community. The project will help support interethnic understanding and strengthen community in Riverside.
Wong has been a part of the oral history collective project Women Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities.
