ABSTRACT
I have always loved cities. I like to live in them, to walk in them and ultimately I find them good to think in, despite their sometimes tragic landscapes. I returned to Philadelphia in 1993 after many years away, and I was immediately seized by the identity politics of the Asian American in this large East Coast city; living in Center City, I couldn’t help but consider both ethnicity and the streets as loci of control, redefinition and cooption. As a one-time resident of Philadelphia, as an Asian American and as a scholar of Southeast Asia and performance studies, I have found myself fascinated by the events I will address here, ever since I first heard of them. We are, of course, in the middle of an extended historical moment in which refugees from the war in mainland Southeast Asia are performatively and politically positioning themselves vis-à-vis other Americans, and I find myself compelled to witness these moments as they pass. This is, then, one scene among many.
