HEDGE海聚留学|为什么和黑人抗争相反，美国华裔从内心到行动都“假装”自己是白人？

_本文原题：为什么和黑人抗争相反，美国华裔从内心到行动都“假装”自己是白人？

本文插图
写在前面的话：不久前一篇耶鲁大学学生给华人家长的公开信 - 我们要和非裔站在一起| 耶鲁华裔学生写给沉默的爸妈和华人社区的公开信在华人圈儿里引起了很大轰动。有人支持，也有不少华人家长认为这些行为“过于激烈”出风头。其实，作为第一代移民的中国家长，和在美国长大的华二代在种族问题上的观点和立场是非常不一样的，家长似乎不能体会种族主义给孩子们带来的“切肤之痛” 。
今天我们摘选了17岁的华裔高中生Andrew Wang的一篇英语作文– Why Blacks Fight, while Chinese Americans Conform? 文章从历史和文化的角度分析了华人在美国为什么与黑人截然相反，不抗争，而是一味地妥协趋同。希望本文从一个华裔第二代孩子的视角，帮助华裔家长理解孩子在美国成长中的挣扎和他们对种族歧视的思考，同时也帮助在中国的留学生和家长了解美国种族问题错综复杂的历史渊源。

本文插图
Andrew Wang ，New Trier High School
我最近读了一本书叫《Interior Chinatown》，在美国种族大分裂的今天，文学作品可以折射出美国现实社会里真实而复杂的痛苦。作者Charles Yu通过这本小说，讽刺并揭示了美国的系统性种族歧视问题。
小说的主人公叫Willis Wu ，是个挣扎着只能演小背景角色的华裔演员。从小时候起，别人就告诉他，凭他的外表，他只能在电影里演点白人观众能接受的练功夫的角色。
像小说里的主人公一样，很多亚裔美国人都活得比较“分裂” 。一方面要面对白人为主的外部社会，另一方面还有一个私下的“自我” 。并不是每一个亚裔愿意这样生活，而是在白人建立的社会制度下， “趋同”成了少数族裔在美国生存并取得成功的必要选择。
历史上美国对亚洲移民采取的各种歧视政策，从他们进入美国开始就让他们有低人一等的感觉，这种感觉逐步深入到他们的深层意识里，影响了几代人。最早的对华裔的排斥情绪可以追溯到1840年的淘金热和1882 年的“排华法案” 。 1800年随着大批华人加入到加州的淘金浪潮里，白人劳工渐渐对华工越来越敌视，主要是觉得他们损害了自己的经济利益。美国历史文献里曾经有这样的记录：
多数的中国工人到美国来都是为了赚钱然后寄回中国养家。同时他们还要还把他们送到美国的人贩子的费用。这种经济上的压力迫使他们不得不接受极低的工钱。而其他族裔的工人们则需要更高的工资来养活他们在美国本土的家眷，同时这些工人在政治上也会采取更强硬的态度来争取高工资。所以很多白人劳动力对中国人很反感，因为很多时候，华工会抢了他们的饭碗。
随着反华情绪的高涨，中国移民受到很多不公平的对待，也被迫离开金矿散落到各个城市里，形成了最初的唐人街。几十年的时间里，反华情绪也从普通民众也升级到政客阶层。加州参议员John F Miller （1831-1886），是支持起草排华法案的重要人物之一，曾经这样说中国矿工：“他们像机器一样，神经麻木，不惧冷热，瘦小但坚韧” 。同时那些白人工人就一直把中国工人一并说成下等的，危险的跟他们竞争工作和工钱的外来人。

本文插图
为了缓解当时美国人的担忧，美国联邦政府在1882年通过了“排华法案” 。法案禁止任何中国劳工进入美国，或者是离开后重返美国。开始时排华法案只是10年有效，但后来延续了三次，直到61年后的1943年才彻底废除。这个法案对美国华人群体有着深刻的消极影响：分页标题
排华法案大幅度地减少了中国进入美国的移民人数。根据1880年的美国人口调查，当时有105,465中国人在美国；到1900年，只有89,863人，而到了1920年，在美华人只剩下61,639人。中国移民受到很多排查，而且可以用任何理由拒绝他们入境。家庭分离，生意关门。
排华法案的通过和实行表明了美国的排华情节是制度层面的，在过去的一个世纪对华人社区有着深远的影响。虽然当时华裔们最初做了一定的抵制和抗争，但在大环境下这些抗争很苍白无力。在数十年如一日的系统性的排斥之下，华裔本身很难对自己的族裔产生自豪感，这也可以从某种程度上解释亚裔华裔这么多年来要趋同，向主流白人文化靠拢的深层需要的起源。
文章的英文原文：
Why do Chinese Americans Conform?
Andrew W. Wang
In these culturally divisive times, writing can serve as a prism through which we can observe and better understand complicated or painful realities. Author Charles Yu uses his novel Interior Chinatown as a medium to both satirize and bring awareness to the issue of institutional racism in America.
The story follows Willis Wu, an Asian Americanactor and his struggle with being a background character in every show he is apart of. Since he was a boy, Willis was told that Kung Fu Guy was the onlyAsian character that would garner respect from a white audience and thePlatonic ideal for someone who looks like him. In the midst of Willis’s constant hustle tobecome Kung Fu Guy, his mother offers him the sage advice to be more. These words are not only a refrain throughout Yu’s novel, but also a mantra that Asians struggle to realize as they navigate their lives in America.
Like Wu, many Asian Americans have to deal with the dissonance between how they present themselves to a white audience and how they act privately, a version of the phenomenon that sociologist Erving Goffman called “the presentation of self.” However, it is not individual Asian people who made their lives this way. In reality, this necessity to conform and assimilate emerged from a system that was created by white people, and developed as a means of survival.
Because ofthis institutional racism, Asian Americans have been denied equal time underthe spotlight in media and politics throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.This must change because a continuous lack of accurate representation has led to damaging self-perception within Asian communities.
The US hasenforced racist policies against the Asian diaspora since its entrance into this country, therefore creating an internalized sense of inferiority among Asian Americans that has lasted generations.
The start of America’s systemic anti-Asiansentiment can be traced back to the gold rush of the 1840s and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. With an influx of Chinese immigrants coming to Californiain search of gold in the early 1800s, white laborers grew increasingly hostile over the years towards the Chinese and saw their presence as a threat to their financial success. As written by the US Office of the Historian:
Most Chinese laborers who came to the United States did so in order to send money back to China to support their families there. At the same time, they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America. These financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could. Non-Chineselaborers often required much higher wages to support their wives and childrenin the United States, and also generally had a stronger political standing to bargain for higher wages. Therefore many of the non-Chinese workers in the United States came to resent the Chinese laborers, who might squeeze them outof their jobs. 分页标题
Because of this increasing resentment, Chinese immigrants were subject to great mistreatment and forcedaway from gold mines and into urban communities, the first Chinatowns. However, even after white laborers’ issues with Chinese immigrants were resolved, sinophobia continued from both grassroots movements and politicians fordecades. Blatantly dehumanizing Chinese immigrants, Sen. John F. Miller ofCalifornia, a proponent of the Chinese Exclusion Act, called Chinese workers“machine-like…of obtuse nerve, but little affected by heat or cold, wiry, sinewy, with muscles of iron” when describing how they worked in mines; at thesame time, white laborers “persisted in their stereotyping of the Chinese as degraded, exotic, dangerous, and competitors for jobs and wages” (Wu).
In responseto the concerns of the American people, the federal government passed the ChineseExclusion Act in 1882. The act prohibited any Chinese laborers from entering the country or reentering if they had left. Initially, it was only meant to last 10 years, but was extended 3 times to ultimately be repealed 61 yearslater in 1943. In this time span, Chinese communities were drastically affected:
[The exclusion law] significantly decreased the number of Chinese immigrants into the United States and forbade those who left to return. According to the U.S. national census in 1880, there were 105,465 Chinese in the United States, compared with 89,863 by 1900 and 61,639 by 1920. Chinese immigrants were placed under a tremendous amount of government scrutiny and were often denied entry into the country on any possible grounds… Families were forced apart, and businesses were closed down.(Wu).
【HEDGE海聚留学|为什么和黑人抗争相反，美国华裔从内心到行动都“假装”自己是白人？】The passing of the Exclusion Act makes it clear that sinophobia in America started from a systemic level and is to blame for the issues that have affected Asian communities for the past century. Although Asian Americans did what they could to resist the government and protest when the policy firstpassed, their efforts were powerless in the bigger picture. After facing systemic discrimination for decades upon decades, it would be difficult tocontinue looking at one’s own people with pride. This in part explains how the need to assimilate to dominant culture started.
Works Cited
1. Fang, Jenn. "The Decade in AsianAmerica." NBC News, 30 Dec.2019. NBC News, www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/decade-asian-america-n1108581.Accessed 27 Apr. 2020.
2. Lee,Elizabeth. First Asian American PresidentialCandidate Scrutinized by Asian Americans. Federal Information & NewsDispatch, LLC, Washington, 2019. ProQuest,https://search-proquest-com.newtrier.idm.oclc.org/docview/2305097102?accountid=36487.
3. Office of the Historian, Foreign ServiceInstitute. "Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts." Office of the Historian,history.state.gov/
milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration.Accessed 28 May 2020.
4. Wu, Yuning. "Chinese Exclusion Act."Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Nov.2013, www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Exclusion-Act. Accessed 16 May 2020. 分页标题
5. Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown. New York, PenguinRandom House, 2020.