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Access Type
Open Access Thesis
Document Type
thesis
Degree Program
Communication
Degree Type
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Year Degree Awarded
2018
Month Degree Awarded
May
Abstract
Asian American belongings, migration patterns, and transnational identities are largely constructed in the United States as static, unidirectional, and invisible. Asian Americans complicate these constructions through the practice of ancestral return. In this thesis, “ancestral return” is constituted through one’s participation in a university study abroad program to a specific place to where one traces her heritage. I use “return” not necessarily to account for a form of reverse migration; rather “return” here names the multiple, sometimes contradictory kinds of return, including “return” to a place that one has not yet been. This project examines how Asian American identities are constructed, disrupted, and transformed when Asian Americans traverse borders, time, and imaginaries. I use a performance ethnography and personal narrative performance methodology to center the memories and experiences of Asian American women who have practiced ancestral return. Personal narrative performances theorize Asian American belongings, migration patterns, and transnational identities within the context of complex and contradictory practices of ancestral return. This work contributes to the theorization of personal narrative performance as well as a growing literature on the return mobilities of the Asian American second-generation and beyond.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/11948698
First Advisor
Kimberlee Pérez
Second Advisor
Richard Chu
Third Advisor
Claudio Moreira
Recommended Citation
Twishime, Porntip Israsena, "Asian American Heritage Seeking: Personal Narrative Performances of Ancestral Return" (2018). Masters Theses. 672.
https://doi.org/10.7275/11948698
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/masters_theses_2/672
Included in
American Studies Commons, Asian American Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Performance Studies Commons