This dissertation examines practices of belonging in contemporary Italy as a fluid process. I examine the Chinatalian experience in Rome, Italy. I am interested in the ways that a Chinatalian phenomenology creates a discursive space for myriad practices of being both Chinese and Italian. “Chinatalianess” is an elastic process and a way of life unique to the individual and the historic and geopolitical context of the moment; it is not definable by nationality, biological characteristics, or even shared cultural practices. “Chinatalian choreographies” are sets of literal and symbolic bodily operations that resist exclusion and generate material and symbolic support for Chinatalians. I would argue that “Chinatalian choreographies” also create the potential for a more just Italy. I analyze actual choreographed events —for example, a happy hour in Rome and a dance performance by a Sicilian dance company — and autobiographical texts written by Chinatalians. My theoretical and practical approach is interdisciplinary and intersectional; I use critical ethnography as a primary method, which builds on theories and practices in critical dance studies, feminist geographies, and postcolonial Italian studies to engage the ways that Chinatalians in Rome are contributing to new forms of “Italian” culture. The recent resurgence of anti-Chinese sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic lends urgency to this project which asks: What are the lived conditions of Chinatalians in contemporary Italy? Who is allowed to contribute to “Italian” culture? This thesis demonstrates that the notion of Italianess and Chinatalianess, are cultural fictions. Not only is Chinatalian identity and culture an invention but its performance is situated in the specific historical and geopolitical context in question. Rome provides the backdrop to this project, and it is against and alongside this history and contemporary context that my argument for a more just Italy emerges.

My thesis, Asian American and dancing in Arizona; A reflection on the politics of choreographing migration and citizenship in a Red State is a written document that reflects on my creative process of making You don’t belong here, a site-specific, multimedia dance theater piece which I conceived, choreographed, and directed in partial fulfillment of my Master in Fine Arts in Dance degree (MFA) at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, Arizona. I write this reflection from the corporeal perspective of my Asian body. My story comes from my cells that contain the memories of my ancestors, including the recent traumas of my parents that escaped war in China. I am writing from my feminist body, my fleshly archive. I am writing from a historically marginalized perspective. I write this reflection to provide my kinesthetic narrative for those that may not know that I exist at ASU. I consider the conservative political ethos of Arizona as an impetus to discover what it means to be Asian American and dancing in the desert.