评论
打印
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.
对于以上各种成见，我总在两种想法间摇摆不定：一方面，仅仅因为相貌特征就将我或者其他任何人与这些成见对号入座，这让我觉得不舒服；但另一方面，我自己确实也发现了不少这样的亚洲人。
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.
我来概括一下我对典型亚洲价值观的感受：去他的孝道，去他的好好学习天天向上，去他的非常春藤盟校不读，去他的尊重权威，去他的谦逊努力，去他的和谐关系，去他的为未来牺牲，去他的虔诚努力的中产阶级奴性。
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.
我理解亚洲父母为何用这种手段抚养整整一代子女。医生、律师、会计、工程师：无论是谁，只要足够努力就能得到这些好的工作机会。难道追求这些好工作有错吗？亚裔美国人从大学毕业的比率比包括白人在内的美国其他种族人群都髙。他们家庭收入中位数也比包括白人在内的美国其他种族人群高。这些只是亚裔取得成功故事中的一个缩影，这远比很多人记忆中的成功故事要短得多。在约1400万的亚裔美国人中，有三分之二的人不是在美国出生的。在1970年，美国只有不到39000名韩国后裔，而今天，韩国后裔达到了大约100万人。
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?
亚裔美国人的成功总被用来证实美国梦，证明那些少数族裔在这个国家依靠自己也能取得成功。但是，想到亚洲人时，总是伴随着潜在的种族恐慌，特别是在中国成了美国的工业基地和控制迅速增长的债务的债主的时候。但是，如果那些制造出快速时尚服饰和iPad的中国的劳动力大军让我们感到惧怕的话，如果众多的优秀亚裔学生让美国父母为他们那宽松的教育方式感到焦急的话，那对于处处听从父母安排的亚裔学生，人们又是怎么想的呢？这些亚裔学生真就那么令人惧怕吗？
