Performing the Generic: Genre, Hybridity, and Identity in Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown

This paper examines how Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown disrupts conventional literary forms to interrogate modern Asian American identity.By synthesizing Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of speech genres and dialogism with Homi Bhabha's postcolonial framework of cultural hybridity and the "Third Space", this study analyzes how Yu employs a hybrid screenplay-novel format to critique systemic racial typing and institutionalized marginalization.The protagonist Willis Wu's navigation of rigid Hollywood roles-"Generic Asian Man," "Background Oriental Male," and the aspiration to become a "Kung Fu Guy"-mirrors the oppressive performative restrictions imposed on marginalized communities within white hegemony.While existing scholarship often addresses the novel through sociological or dramaturgical lenses, this paper demonstrates that Yu's subversion of narrative genre itself is a vital tool for deconstructing internalized stereotypes.Ultimately, the study reveals how the text's formal hybridity functions as a subversive literary strategy that moves beyond binary assimilation models, creating a fluid, self-determined space for authentic cross-generational identity construction and reclaimed agency.