The Students Who Gave Me My Voice Back
Teaching Queer Music, Confronting Silence, and Singing Again
By Smee Wong
Since 2017, I’ve taught over sixty college courses across three institutions. I’ve stood before classrooms filled with thousands of students, guiding them through the history, theory, performance, and cultural study of music. I was used to giving grades, structuring experiences, and sharing knowledge. But nothing could have prepared me for how remarkably my life would be changed by teaching a single honors seminar at Lehman College.
At the City University of New York’s Lehman College, two elite honors programs — Macaulay Honors and the Lehman Scholars Program — invite faculty to propose interdisciplinary seminar courses each academic year. In 2024, I was fortunate to be selected to teach a seminar, “Intercultural Compositions,” focused on the crossroads of Eastern and Western musical aesthetics. We studied artists such as Tan Dun, Toru Takemitsu, John Zorn, John Cage, and Sheila Chandra, exploring how cultural identity, spirituality, and politics inform musical expression.
As someone born and raised in China and later educated at the University of Denver and the University of Hawai‘i, that intersection of Asian and Western musical influences has always been intensely personal to me. I felt at home in that seminar, joyfully navigating traditions I understood both intellectually and emotionally. It was exhilarating to design and teach that course, but I knew the honors program preferred different topics each year. So, when the 2025 call for proposals came, I began asking myself: What else do I care about passionately?
At that time, I had been immersing myself in scholarly literature on queer identity and music, such as Listening to the Sirens by Judith Ann Peraino and Queerness in Pop Music by Stan Hawkins. I found myself wondering: What might it mean to teach a class about music and LGBTQ+ experience? Could we discuss music not just through notes and harmonies, but through lived stories of resilience, erasure, and resistance?
I submitted my proposal with a simple yet unwavering statement: “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.” It may have sounded like a cliché, but it was true — and I believed in it. When the proposal was accepted, I knew I had to bring my full, unapologetic self into the classroom.
In the spring 2025 semester, I offered Queer Voices in Contemporary Music. The seminar featured two guest masterclasses: one by Professor Kris Carlisle from Berry College and another by the brilliant jazz pianist and composer Steve Sweeting. Both generously shared their music and stories. But the heart of the course was the students. I invited them to lead discussions, give presentations, write essays, record podcasts, and submit reflection papers in their native or chosen languages. Our 15-week journey transformed us all — students and teacher alike.
Here are just a few voices that rang powerfully through our seminar space:
Pop is protest, and protest is art. Naming isn’t just about putting people into boxes. It’s about recognition, about resisting erasure, and about claiming space. If we don’t name ourselves, someone else will. And if we stay unnamed, we risk being erased. If we don’t provide the words, they’ll make up their own, and they probably won’t be kind. — Mehdi Hassan
我自己觉得流行音乐是对现在的时代一种武器，一个对抗社会的武器。如果有人敢做就会慢慢有些收获，让社会体会到改变。在这世上，有各种各样的人，这些规矩对想做自己的人很不利。
(I personally think that pop music is a weapon for our times — a weapon to resist society. If someone dares to use it, it will yield results little by little, helping society feel the impact of change. There are all kinds of people in this world, and these rules are often harmful to those who want to be themselves.) — Jinjie Zhu
I think that labels help define LGBT existence by providing a sense of identity, community, and visibility. I think labels are a way for one self’s affirmation and self-understanding. They help individuals make sense of their feelings and experiences. — Michael Cisneros
Kini nakapaamgo kanako nga kami ingon nga usa ka katilingban dali ra kaayo nga mohukom ug mahulog sa ingon nga mga pagpili sa pipila ka mga indibidwal.
(It made me realize that, as a society, we are so quick to judge and categorize certain individuals.) — Silyne Tapongot
Dem a prove seh femininity nuh mean submission, and sexuality nuh fi hide or shame. And if datbun unnu? Good. It mean dem a do di work right.
(They’re proving that femininity doesn’t mean submission, and that sexuality shouldn’t be hidden or a source of shame. And if that bothers you? Good. It means they’re doing the work right.) — Shianna Nichols
Para mí, lo más importante en el mundo es que las personas tengan la habilidad de expresarselibremente.
(For me, the most important thing in the world is that people have the ability to express themselves freely.) — Lisbeth Peralta Quiroz
Pa los gustos se hicieron los colores.
(Different strokes for different folks.) — Shelby Heredia
Queer men often feel the need to hide how they feel because of toxic ideas around masculinity. — Kaylyn Conforme
I yearn for spaces where queerness isn’t reduced to mere performance, where we don’t have to exchange emotion for acceptance. Because if the only way to be seen is to become what once erased us, then what are we truly celebrating? — Chanell Cuevas
The class discussions spoke of trauma, joy, defiance, and a yearning for spaces where students could be fully themselves without apology or compromise. They were raw, vulnerable,intellectual, and — above all — authentic.
A little over ten years earlier, in graduate school, a professor asked me a question that haunted me: “Smee, do you want to be known as the jazz singer with an accent?” I didn’t know how to respond. Imagine a young, queer Chinese student, far from home, trying to carve out a space in jazz — an art form deeply tied to American identity. That simple question triggered a wave of impostor syndrome, making me profoundly insecure. I felt I would never be enough to be a true jazz vocalist, simply because I could never shed my accent. Whether well-intended or not, that comment struck a chord and silenced me. For many years afterward, I stopped singing publicly, losing the joy and courage that had once filled my voice.
But these students — my students — helped me reclaim it.
Through our conversations about queerness, diaspora, and voice, I saw in them what I had lost in myself: a fearless willingness to be seen. They did not wait for permission to speak. They spoke anyway. They wrote with conviction, in the languages of their grandmothers and their inner selves. And they reminded me that identity doesn’t have to be something we prove — it’s something we live.
Because of them, I decided to sing again.
After more than a decade-long hiatus, I performed a faculty recital on May 8, 2025. I began recording my second album, titled We Both Know Why — a work dedicated to all the queer students, musicians, and dreamers who have ever been asked to make themselves smaller, straighter, quieter. I now sing not in spite of my accent, but because of it — because it carries inflections of minority, jazz, migration, and survival.
What I’ve learned from teaching this honors class is this: Never let anyone silence you — not professors, not parents, not politicians. Your story matters. Your identity is not a liability; it is your power. What you once saw as flaws — whether it’s your accent, your body, your skin, your sexuality — are the very things that make you unique and worthy of celebration. You don’t need to wait for a role model. You can be your own. And sometimes, the most surprising truth of all is this: your students can become your role models.
Teaching honors students didn’t just deepen my knowledge or improve my syllabi — it healed something in me. It reminded me what teaching can be: not just transactional, but transformative. Not just academic, but alive. So, to answer the question: yes, I would like to be known as the singer with an accent.
To anyone who’s ever questioned their right to belong — in a classroom, on a stage, or in a song — I see you. I’ve been you. And I’ve shown you.
And because of that, I am forever changed.
About the Author
Smee Wong is a Doctoral Lecturer at Lehman College. He is a 2024–2025 CUNY Career Success Fellow and serves as a senator on the CUNY University Faculty Senate.
A multifaceted musician and scholar, Smee received training at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he developed a distinctive voice that led to his invitation as a guest composer at the prestigious Beijing Modern Music Festival. His compositions — spanning chamber, orchestral, and jazz idioms — have been performed across China, Europe, Canada, and the United States and synthesize Eastern and Western musical traditions.
As a vocalist and improviser, Smee is noted for his lyrical phrasing, emotional depth, and adventurous timbral palette. He holds a Master’s degree in Vocal Jazz Performance from the University of Denver and a Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
His scholarly work includes publications in Art Review and the Journal of Xinghai Conservatory of Music, as well as an award-winning presentation at the China Music Review Society. His Chinese translation of Norman Lebrecht’s Who Killed Classical Music? underscores his commitment to global musical dialogue. His works are published by TUX People’s Music and Dulcamara Press.
Before joining Lehman, Smee taught at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Umpqua Community College in Oregon. He is currently working on two book projects slated for release in 2026 and 2027.
Learn more about Dr. Smee Wong and his work by visiting smeewong.com or emailing smeewong@gmail.com.
