I've always been of two minds about this sequence of stereotypes. On the one hand, it offends me greatly that anyone would think to apply them to me, or to anyone else, simply on the basis of facial characteristics. On the other hand, it also seems to me that there are a lot of Asian people to whom they apply.
對于以上各種成見,我總在兩種想法間搖擺不定:一方面,僅僅因為相貌特征就將我或者其他任何人與這些成見對號入座,這讓我覺得不舒服;但另一方面,我自己確實也發現了不少這樣的亞洲人。
Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Damn filial piety. Damn grade grubbing. Damn Ivy League mania. Damn deference to authority. Damn humility and hard work. Damn harmonious relations. Damn sacrificing for the future. Damn earnest, striving middle-class servility.
我來概括一下我對典型亞洲價值觀的感受:去他的孝道,去他的好好學習天天向上,去他的非常春藤盟校不讀,去他的尊重權威,去他的謙遜努力,去他的和諧關系,去他的為未來犧牲,去他的虔誠努力的中產階級奴性。
I understand the reasons Asian parents have raised a generation of children this way. Doctor, lawyer, accountant, engineer: These are good jobs open to whoever works hard enough. What could be wrong with that pursuit? Asians graduate from college at a rate higher than any other ethnic group in America, including whites. They earn a higher median family income than any other ethnic group in America, including whites. This is a stage in a triumphal narrative, and it is a narrative that is much shorter than many remember. Two-thirds of the roughly 14 million Asian Americans are foreign-born. There were less than 39,000 people of Korean descent living in America in 1970. There are around 1 million today.
我理解亞洲父母為何用這種手段撫養整整一代子女。醫生、律師、會計、工程師:無論是誰,只要足夠努力就能得到這些好的工作機會。難道追求這些好工作有錯嗎?亞裔美國人從大學畢業的比率比包括白人在內的美國其他種族人群都髙。他們家庭收入中位數也比包括白人在內的美國其他種族人群高。這些只是亞裔取得成功故事中的一個縮影,這遠比很多人記憶中的成功故事要短得多。在約1400萬的亞裔美國人中,有三分之二的人不是在美國出生的。在1970年,美國只有不到39000名韓國后裔,而今天,韓國后裔達到了大約100萬人。
Asian American success is typically taken to ratify the American Dream and to prove that minorities can make it in this country without handouts. Still, an undercurrent of racial panic always accompanies the consideration of Asians, and all the more so as China becomes the destination for our industrial base and the banker controlling our burgeoning debt. But if the armies of Chinese factory workers who make our fast fashion and iPads terrify us, and if the collective mass of high-achieving Asian American students arouse an anxiety about the laxity of American parenting, what of the Asian American who obeyed everything his parents told him? Does this person really scare anyone?
亞裔美國人的成功總被用來證實美國夢,證明那些少數族裔在這個國家依靠自己也能取得成功。但是,想到亞洲人時,總是伴隨著潛在的種族恐慌,特別是在中國成了美國的工業基地和控制迅速增長的債務的債主的時候。但是,如果那些制造出快速時尚服飾和iPad的中國的勞動力大軍讓我們感到懼怕的話,如果眾多的優秀亞裔學生讓美國父母為他們那寬松的教育方式感到焦急的話,那對于處處聽從父母安排的亞裔學生,人們又是怎么想的呢?這些亞裔學生真就那么令人懼怕嗎?