历史总是如此的相似
近期，乔治亚州的一名白人持枪疯狂杀害了8人，其中有6人是亚裔女性。1982年6月19日，由于对美国汽车产业衰落的愤怒，两名白人汽车工人误将陈果仁认作日本人并加以毒打，致使几天后他因伤势过重而亡。这两起事件都深深地烙印在针对亚裔美国人的种族歧视历史中。
After Chin’s murder, Asian American filmmakers Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peña set out to document his story and its aftermath — particularly how it marked a turning point for Asian American civil rights and galvanized Asian Americans to work collectively to seek justice.
陈果仁被谋杀后，亚裔美国电影人崔明慧和塔吉玛-佩纳着手记录他的故事及其后续影响，着重突出了该事件如何成为美籍亚裔公民权利的转折点、又如何激励了亚裔美国人共同努力寻求正义。
Today, Choy and Tajima-Peña see instant parallels between past and present. Choy noted that both incidents are grim reminders that Asian Americans are often painted as a nameless, faceless mass — a trope reinforced in history textbooks and pop culture images that have marginalized Asian Americans.
如今，崔明慧和塔吉玛-佩纳看到了过去和现在的相似之处。崔明慧指出，这两起事件都用残酷的事实提醒人们，亚裔美国人经常被描绘成一个无名无姓的群体——这类在历史教科书和流行文化里反复出现的形象，已经把亚裔美国人边缘化了。
亚裔面孔：千人一面
“ 陈果仁曾被误认为日本人。我们很容易被认错，” 崔明慧在一次采访中说道。“对于杀害这些亚洲女人的枪手来说，我认为他根本不知道这些人到底是谁。”
“There is such a lack of knowledge about Asians and Asian Americans because we’ve been lumped together. Even though America engaged in long periods of war with Vietnam, you think any of America understood a thing about Vietnamese culture? Hell no!” Choy said, noting that major events like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which established decades of immigration restrictions against Asian Americans, usually get just “one sentence” in history textbooks. “There was never really a thorough analysis of the violence against Asians.”
“ 许多人并不了解亚洲人和亚裔美国人间的差别，因为我们通常被归为一类。尽管美国与越南进行了长期的战争，但你认为美国人对越南文化有任何了解吗？当然不！”她指出，像1882年的《排华法案》颁布这样的重大事件，在历史教科书上通常只有“一句话”，然而该法案确立了数十年针对亚裔美国人的移民限制。“针对亚洲人的暴力行为从来没有得到彻底系统的分析阐释。”
Tajima-Peña, a veteran documentarian who was the lead producer on last year’s PBS docuseries “Asian Americans,” said it’s vital to frame Chin’s murder and the subsequent activism of Asian Americans as a movement toward justice. In the years following the documentary’s release, she often discovered that this point was lost in conversations about Chin’s legacy.
塔吉玛·佩纳是资深纪录片制作人，也是去年PBS纪录片《亚裔美国人》的主要制片人。她表示，将陈果仁谋杀案以及随后亚裔美国人的积极行动定义为追求正义之举至关重要。而在纪录片发行后的几年里，她发现在谈论陈果仁事件的后续影响时，‘追求正义’这一点已经消失不见了。
“I was really disturbed by the degree to which the Vincent Chin case was sort of trotted out as this example of Asian American grievance — like, ‘Yes, we’re victimized, too,’” she said. “There’s a big, big difference. I think grievance is: ‘We’re Asian. People are attacking us.’ And we have this sense of a kind of ethnocentrism to defend ourselves. But justice is something more meaningful and something much larger than that. Justice is the way to move forward. To me, grievance is the way to move backward.”
她说：“陈果仁的例子频频被拿出来当作亚裔美国人受到不公的典范事例，这让我感到非常不安，‘我们也是受害者’。不断抱怨和追寻正义这两者之间差别非常大。我认为抱怨是不断强调‘我们是亚裔，所以遭到攻击。’我们有这样种民族优越感的自我保护机制，但司法上的正义比这更重要更意义深远。依我来看，推进法律完善才能向前进步，而一味地抱怨只能使社会向后倒退。”
冲破主流叙事的枷锁
Some of that sense of grievance still exists, Tajima-Peña said, pointing to how, right now, some Asian Americans have chosen to focus on the fact that some of the suspects in recent incidents of anti-Asian racism were other people of color.
塔吉玛·佩纳表示，美国亚裔的不满情绪尚存。她指出，当下某些美国亚裔群体注意到，最近针对亚裔的种族歧视事件的嫌犯是其它有色人种。
Tajima-Peña said that the kinds of narratives about Asian Americans, such as those that pit communities of color against each other, are often framed by white gatekeepers. “Toni Morrison talks about how the master narrative is not written by us. And so in that master narrative, there’s this focus on Asian-Black conflict, and not Asian-Black solidarity,” she said.
有声音称，对亚裔的仇视是有色人种之间的相互歧视。 塔吉玛·佩纳说，这种叙事话语实际上通常被身为白人的“把关人”掌握。“托妮·莫里森曾说，美国的主导叙事并不由我们这样的有色人种书写。所以在这样的主导叙事下，亚裔与非裔间的冲突备受关注，而亚裔非裔团结一致的话题却鲜有问津。”她说。
Toni Morrison：托妮·莫里森，美国黑人女作家，1993年获得诺贝尔文学奖。其作品情感炽热，以对美国黑人生活的敏锐观察闻名。主要作品有《最蓝的眼睛》、《苏拉》、《所罗门之歌》和《柏油娃》等。
But today, she said, more Asian Americans are telling our own stories and shaping our own narratives, and they are more aware of the history of and need for solidarity across different communities of color to combat systemic racism and white supremacy.
塔吉玛·佩纳认为，当下越来越多的美国亚裔群体在讲述他们自己的故事，主导自己的叙事话语权。他们也更意识到，各群体需要团结起来的历史性和必要性，以共同对抗系统性的种族主义以及白人至上主义。
systemic racism：系统性种族主义，首次由美国社会学家乔·费金在《系统性种族主义:一个压迫理论》一书中首次提出该理论。其涉及种族压迫的深层和表层结构,包括一系列复杂的反黑人行为、白人不公正获得的政治以及经济权力。
“As soon as Captain [Jay] Baker from Cherokee County said, ’Well, it was sex addiction, and he was just having a bad day,’ and they were discounting the racial motivations, Asian Americans called bullshit,” she said. “And I think years ago, that would not have happened. I think the Asian American voices would have been drowned out, and I think also, the Asian American community, we kind of would have had second thoughts [about speaking out].”
她说：“调查亚特兰大亚裔枪杀案的杰·贝克警官表示‘（嫌疑人）只是性上瘾，而且他当天过得很不顺心’，试图抹去事件中的种族因素。此话一出，美国亚裔群体纷纷表示愤慨。我觉得如果是在几年以前，这根本不会发生。美国亚裔群体的声音会在嘈杂中淹没，我们（美国亚裔群体）在为自己发声之前会犹豫再三，三思而后行。”
Choy recalled beginning her career at a time when the gatekeepers in media were almost all white men, “all with a suit and tie, Burberry trench coat,” she said. “I remember, my first job was at ABC, and I had to spend money to buy outfits to go into the building. And then you walk in. I mean, the only people I got along with were the people in the supply room because they were at the bottom of the ladder. Everybody else, they have nothing to say to me, and they’re not interested in my stories. They don’t give a damn.”
据崔明慧回忆，在她职业生涯刚开始时，新闻从业人员几乎都是白人男性，“他们个个都西装革履，还外配Burberry风衣，”她继续补充说：“我记得，我的第一份工作在美国广播公司(ABC)，我得花钱买整套服装才有资格进入大楼。进去后，唯一能和我相处的就是那些在补给室工作的人，因为他们的地位最低。其他人完全不搭理我与我没有共同语言，对我的报道也不感兴趣。他们根本不在乎。
She said that at the time, civil rights laws required TV networks “to do some programming [for] so-called minority populations. But all the people who are at the top of the programs are white, and they tell you what to do. So I quit, and I became an independent filmmaker,” she said. “It’s our responsibility to document our own history, rather than be documented by some other, you know, Burberry-coat wearing people.”
她说，当时的民权法要求电视台“为所谓的少数群体制作一些节目，但所有负责这些项目的都是白人，他们按自己的想法指手画脚。所以我辞职了，并成为了一个独立电影制作人。我们有责任记录我们自己的历史，而不是被那些穿着Burberry外套的所谓‘白种人精英’记录。”
编译 | 张云扬 张璐瑶 祖芃芃 谢瞳 闫语格
排版 | 谢瞳
