The Moon Represents My Heart: Music, Memory and Belonging focuses on the transformative power of music identity in immigrant Chinese communities from 1850s to the present. During this period, disparate music genres converged with historic milestones, including changes in U.S. immigration legislation and China’s soft power emergence. The exhibition delves into how Chinese immigrant communities have yearned for the ‘old country’, fashioned new American identities, or challenged stereotypes through their embrace of music forms as far-reaching as Cantonese opera, hip hop, Asian American Movement music, Taiwan love ballads, Canto-pop, western classical, karaoke, Beijing underground rock, and many other genres.

The exhibition is co-curated by Hua Hsu, staff writer at The New Yorker, and MOCA’s curatorial team: Herb Tam, Curator and Director of Exhibitions, and Andrew Rebatta, Associate Curator.