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“Living As Art”: Performance And The Haunting Of The Japanese Diaspora, Hana Tanabe

East Asian Languages and Cultures Department Honors Papers

In this thesis, I focus on the themes of family memory and history in relation to the Japanese diaspora, and how performance becomes an invaluable method of expression and discovery when words are inadequate. To explore these themes, I analyze the performances of three Japanese and Japanese artists, each of whom expresses their stories through a variety of genres, ranging from experimental short film and documentary to musical theater. Although the stories that the artists tell are connected by their discussion of the intergenerational impact of Japanese American incarceration in the United States during World War II, a history that …