People of Color

Japanese American singer-songwriter Mitski Miyawaki says her identity is made up of “a million selves” that defy categorization — and fans are saying they find inspiration in that.

“I don’t have a self,” Mitski said on the website for her record label. “I have a million selves, and they’re all me, and I inhabit them, and they all live inside me.”

“The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We,” Mitski’s newest album, released last week by music label Dead Oceans, explores her multitude of selves, she says. Featuring a choir and orchestral arrangements, the album draws from classic Americana imagery such as freight trains, buffalo stampedes and highway cars.

With this album, Mitski is trying to “reconcile all my various identities with being American,” she said in an interview with NPR. “I’m Asian American. I’m half white, half Asian. And so I don’t really fit into either community very well. I am an other in America, even though I am American.”