Bắt Đầu Từ Đầu, Embodied: Vietnamese American (Re)Constructions of Abolitionist Counter-Theater

The academic shift leading to increased visibility of Asian American artists over the past few decades has transformed the landscape of authentic storytelling within the Vietnamese American diaspora. Given the contemporary shift towards digital streaming for films and television, I examine the possibilities of the traditional American theater for the articulation of Vietnamese (re)tellings of history and the extent of artistic freedom. Through semi-structured interviews with Vietnamese American youth in California, I position these young individuals as political performers who transform historically white-dominated theater spaces into sites of resistance, hosting opportunities for collective healing and sociopolitical defiance. Drawing from critical refugee studies, performance studies, Asian American Studies, and abolitionist theory, I critically complicate the American theater as a site of freedom rehearsal, where Southeast Asian American radicals reorient the centering of white-hegemonic and pro-militaristic subjectivity, becoming agents of their own liberation. This study not only highlights the limitations of traditional American historical narratives, but also highlights the potential of theater as a space for resistance and re-imagining social realities for Asian American beings. As a lifelong political performer, I emphasize the transformative power of performance in reorienting dominant paradigms and shaping a more liberatory world for Southeast Asian Americans.