Pop, Rock, Blues, Alternative, etc.
In the US, there are White, Black and Latino stars…but none of asian decent.
Now, I’m sure there’s big stars in their respective native lands, but none have broken through here.
Why not?
Anita Mui and Karen Mok are all over my playlist, man. And there is that asian dude in Smashing Pumpkins. I think here people seem to assume all asians are kung fu masters or doctors, so they just ignore the asian singers.
Because the market for non-English music is limited by comparison, and it costs a lot to break into the mainstream US market?
Freddy Mercury was Indian, though he downplayed it. And he was a pretty big rock star.
Shonen Knife was/is big in some circles. They toured with Nirvana and gathered a decent following. But not “star” status, I suppose.
Wasn’t he Iranian? His family was Farsi, right?
There was a band in the 80’s called Loudness. they were, I think, Japanese. they came out when all the ‘heavy’ metal was dying out.
A co-worker went to a concert where they opened. The crowd kinda was bored, he said, and pretty much was waiting until the main act.
the lead singer then said, in between songs, in bad English: Why you no clapping?
which was funny on two levels:
a) the idea of a polite, well mannered japanese crowd, clapping at a heavy metal concert.
and
b) the L in clapping sounded like an r, so it sounded like he said: Why you no crapping?
which made every one laugh, but he probably didn’t know why.
Dude, what about Cornelius. And, yes, Shonen Knife were huge in the circles I traveled in in the early nineties. Pizzicato Five? Cibo Matto even?
Every once in a while you see a Japanese band here in the states. I’d describe them more as novelty acts popular with a select few rather then truly popular.
Marc
Have you all heard Morning Musume yet? They’re sorta the Japanese equivalent of the Spice Girls. They’re happy, crappy pop music, but at least they don’t make you want to chew all the skin off your thumbs like Britney Spears.
Have you all forgotten about Pink Lady? They only happened to have a cutting edge, expensively produced show on American TV only about, say twenty years ago. The show was called, not surprisingly, Pink Lady and Jeff. Hey, I was kidding.
There’s Guitar Wolf, an ass-kicking, eardrum busting punk/rockabilly band from Japan. They used to tour the U.S. fairly frequently, though I haven’t heard anything from them in about five years.
James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins guy) is the only big one I can think of. Oh, and Tia Carere’s band in Wayne’s World.
I a unsure as to whether the OP is wondering about Asian-Americans or Asians who are actually in Asia. If the former, then I would say that Asian-Americans do not make up a large percentage of the American population, so one would not expect them to make up a large percentage of American musicians. There are obviously a great many Asian performers who are hugely successful in Asia, but both the language barrier and the popularity of different styles in Asia than in the US stand in the way of any act hoping to make a big breakthrough to the American market.
What about Seiko? 
I too think that a big part of it is that they don’t speak English so well.
Although, Sakamoto Kyu did OK with “Sukiyaki” in the 50’s.
One thing I’ve noticed over here is more collaborations between Japanese singers and Western singers. Examples being Miki Douzan and UB40, Yuki Koyanagi and a couple of the guys from Boys 2 Men, S-Word (yep, that’s his stage name) and Christina Milian. But again, they don’t seem to be popular in the States. I have no idea why.
What about the guy from the Romantics?
And I think the Vapors turned Japanese for a while in the early 80s.
The guitar guy from Soundgarden
Going back many many years, Larry Ramos of The Association (“Cherish”, “Along Comes Mary”) was Asian from Hawaii.
Asian Dub Foundation!
How about Quan from Regurgitator?
He was also in Happyland with that other woman from that other band… yeesh I’m only 16 and my memory’s shot.
And who could forget about the Green Boys? Yata! Anyone?