UC Irvine

The governing question of this dissertation is: how do migrants leverage the power of theater to recover from trauma and navigate their expectations of themselves and others’ expectations of them? I explore the theatrical nature of migrant encounters, arguing that a desire to heal from trauma, a negotiation between one’s and others’ expectations of oneself, the transnational surveillance of China, and racial violence in the U.S. condition Chinese migrants to maneuver their lives with a wit that is the wit of theater. To say that Chinese migrants have theatrical wit highlights that this group of people is: 1) keenly sharp in understanding the oppressive situations that they are dealing with; 2) extremely capable in developing strategies to survive dangerous encounters; 3) imaginatively adaptive. Thus, the essence of migrant wit is a distanced, and at times dissociated form of consciousness that allows for a more dispassionate consideration of events. In this perceptive distance between oneself and one’s experiences, Chinese people carefully formulate acts, speeches, and life scripts to negotiate with how they are perceived by themselves, others, and the U.S. and Chinese states.

In recent decades, Performance Studies has argued that identity is performative in all aspects. Though there are important nuances between race, gender, sexuality, age, and (dis)ability, the core argument is that identity is a doing rather than a being. While this framework is useful in many ways, my own experience of migration and creative scholarship projects suggest that identity is not just doing; it is also perception. Thus, this project contributes to Theatre and Performance Studies by redirecting our attention from performance/performativity to theater/theatricality. Theater here refers to not simply conventional theater but also the wit of theater that involves role-play, deception, and self-deception. I approach the appearances of the theatrical that are central to migrant experiences as a mode of consciousness. The various conundrums that Chinese migrants encounter are also a process through which they try to fix the past that is not fixed. In doing so, they show us how, as migrants seek survival in a hostile world, they attempt to work through persistent wounds that cannot be recovered. That woundedness, in turn, creates other kinds of trauma.