scripts we share (2025)
Conceptual Ethnographic Screenplay

Scripts We Share is a conceptual ethnographic screenplay that discusses the social scripts developed and performed by Burmese immigrants as they navigate everyday life in the United States. Blending ethnographic observation with cinematic storytelling, the project treats daily interactions–at work, in public spaces, and within diasporic gatherings–not as spontaneous exchanges, but as carefully rehearsed performances shaped by precarity and immigration regimes.

Instead of understanding these scripts as tools of assimilation, the project frames them as acts of calibration – for they strategically manage visibility, and risk. Each retelling of an encounter is a rehearsal. An opportunity to revise the script for the next scene. Ultimately, Scripts We Share asks what it means to live a life where safety depends on performance. Where speech is tactical and belonging is negotiated.