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Unit 7 Rewriting American History
改寫美國歷史
Frances FitzGerald
弗朗西絲·菲茲杰拉德
Those of us who grew up in the fifties believed in the permanence of our American-history textbooks. To us as children, those texts were the truth of things: They were American history. It was not just that we read them before we understood that not everything that is printed is the truth, or the whole truth. It was that they, much more than other books, had the demeanor and trappings of authority. They were weighty volumes. They spoke in measured cadences: imperturbable, humorless, and as distant as Chinese emperors. Our teachers treated them with respect, and we paid them abject homage by memorizing a chapter a week. But now the textbook histories have changed, some of them to such an extent that an adult would find them unrecognizable.
我們這些成長于50年代的人總以為美國的歷史教科書是亙古不變的。對于兒時的我們來說，歷史書就代表了事情的真相，因為它們是美國歷史。這不僅因為在我們讀到這些書的時候，我們尚未意識到書上印刷的并不意味著事實，至少不是事實的全部，而是因為和其他書比起來，歷史書看起來更權威。一卷卷厚重的書本字斟句酌、嚴謹慎重、呆板無趣，就像中國皇帝一樣遙不可及。老師們對這些書充滿了尊敬，而我們則唯唯諾諾地每周背誦一個章節來表達我們對它們的崇敬。然而今天，歷史教科書已然發生了變化，有些甚至變得面目全非，讓我們這些成年人再難找到以前教科書的一絲蹤跡。
One current junior-high-school American history begins with a story about a Negro cowboy called George Mcjunkin. It appears that when Mcjunkin was riding down a lonely trail in New Mexico one cold spring morning in 1925 he discovered a mound containing bones and stone implements, which scientists later proved belonged to an Indian civilization ten thousand years old. The book goes on to say that scientists now believe there were people in the Americas at least twenty thousand years ago. It discusses the Aztec, Mayan, and Incan civilizations and the meaning of the word "culture” before introducing the European explorers.
時下的一本初中歷史教科書中，美國歷史開始于一個黑人牛仔男孩喬治·麥克瓊金的故事。1925年一個寒冷春日的清晨，麥克瓊金騎馬經過新墨西哥州的一條荒涼的林間小道，他發現了一堆骨骸和石器工具，科學家們后來證明這些骨骸和石器屬于一萬年前的印第安文明。書中寫道，科學家們據此認為至少兩萬年前南北美洲就出現了人類。在介紹來到美洲的歐洲探險家們之前，該書先討論了阿茲特克人、瑪雅人、印加文明以及“文明”一詞的含義。
Another history text—this one for the fifth grade—begins with the story of how Henry B. Gonzalez, who is a member of Congress from Texas, learned about his own nationality. When he was ten years old, his teacher told him he was an American because he was born in the United States. His grandmother, however, said, 'The cat was born in the oven. Does that make him bread?" After reporting that Mr. Gonzalez eventually went to college and law school, the book explains that "the melting pot idea hasn't worked out as some thought it would," and that now "some people say that the people of the United States are more like a salad bowl than a melting pot."
另一本為五年級學生撰寫的教科書則以一位田納西州國會議員亨利·B·岡薩雷斯的民族身份認知之旅開篇。在岡薩雷斯10歲那年，他的老師告訴他，他是一個美國人，因為他出生在美國。但他的祖母卻反問：“這只貓是在烤爐里出生的，那難道它就是個面包嗎？”在講述完岡薩雷斯先生最終上了大學和法學院的故事之后，書中的解釋是“大熔爐的觀點并未像某些人所預期的那樣取得成效”，而且如今“有些人認為美國與其說是一個大熔爐，倒不如說是一個沙拉碗”。
