The performance of race in Asian American drama

This dissertation argues for the centrality of the tropes of theatricality and performance in the understanding of race and ethnicity in Asian American drama. Racialized subjects, I argue, are invited and expected by the dominant culture to perform their race as subordinate and submissive beings. Self-conscious performance and acting, however, can disturb performativity, as minority subjects enact their own performances and highlight the theatrical, not biological, nature of identity. Through readings of plays by David Henry Hwang and Philip Kan Gotanda, the dissertation demonstrates how notions of theatricality and performance can illuminate key issues in critical studies of race, such as internalized racism, stereotype and self-representation, and the relationship between minority subjects and the dominant culture.