(Re)claiming refugee resistance: centering Southeast Asian prison narratives as study

In this thesis, I explore the manifestation of resistance and meaning making in prison stories. As the penal system has gained much attention from major media outlets and community based organizations, Southeast Asian refugees of the Vietnam War have been left out of the conversation. Drawing on literature from the fields of sociology, anthropology, critical refugee studies, Asian American and Ethnic studies, I examine the intricacies and matrices of refugee identities, relocation, displacement, criminalization and incarceration. I answer the following question: how does resistance form from asylum seekers during their criminalization and incarceration? By practice of content analysis of the stories produced out of prison by Southeast Asian men prisoners, this research articulates the resistance formed from the relationship between refugee identities and incarceration.