A couple of years ago, my friends and I called an Uber to take us to a Laker game. We were a motley crew, reflective of the diversity of Los Angeles, and I was the only Asian. The driver, who spoke with an accent that made me believe he was an immigrant like myself, asked us all where we were from.

几年前，我和朋友们叫了一辆滴滴带我们去看湖人队的比赛。我们这群人里东南西北的人都有，这反映了洛杉矶的多样性，而我是其中唯一的亚裔人。司机说话的口音让我相信他和我一样是移民，他问我们都是哪里人。

“Around here,” we replied in unison. Then he looked at me and smirked. “Not you” he said, pointing to my eyes and making that slanty gesture. You can’t be from here. Where are you really from?”

"就在这附近。"我们异口同声地回答。然后他看着我，笑了笑。他说："你不是。"他指着我的眼睛，做了个斜拉眼睛的手势。 你不可能是这里的人。你到底是哪里人？"
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Although I was born in South Korea, I lived most of my life in the States from age 3 and onward. Since then I’ve spent so much of my time here trying to convince everyone, including myself, that I am indeed American. It is an isolating and lonely existence, one that is specific to the Asian American experience.

虽然我出生在韩国，但从3岁开始，我大部分时间都生活在美国。从那时起，我在这里花了很多时间试图说服所有人，包括我自己，我确实是美国人。这是一种孤立和孤独的生活，是美国亚裔特有的经历。

I sat still, frozen in discomfort and silence, as my friends giggled. I began to replay similar scenes from my childhood in my head while sitting in a car with another person of color othering and jeering me while my non-Asian friends stifled their laughter. I couldn’t help but wonder: Why does everyone else find me and my experience so funny?

我静静地坐着，呆呆地看着我的朋友们傻笑。我开始在脑海中回放童年时的类似场景，当时我坐在车里，另一个有色人种对我进行谩骂和嘲笑，而我的非亚裔朋友们则忍着笑意。我不禁疑惑。为什么别人都觉得我和我的经历如此有趣？

After many years of enduring a special kind of racial trauma, I learned the answer. This is what no one tells you about being Asian in America in 2021: Our world minimizes us and we minimize ourselves.

经过多年忍受一种特殊的种族创伤，我知道了答案。这就是没人会告诉你的2021年美国亚裔现状。我们的世界贬低我们，我们也贬低我们自己。

Since the start of COVID-19, there has been a 1,900% rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans, and more specifically, against elderly Asian Americans, which has struck a painful chord within many of us who were raised to respect and protect our elders. But what has been even more painful was the lack of attention this received in the mainstream media.

自从新冠病毒流行开始以来，针对亚裔美国人的仇恨犯罪，特别是针对亚裔美国老人的仇恨犯罪上升了1900%，这让我们许多从小就被教育要尊重和保护长辈的人感到痛心疾首。但更让人痛心的是，主流媒体对此缺乏关注。

I found out about Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old Thai man who was forcibly shoved onto the ground and killed while walking on the street in San Francisco, a 64-year-old grandmother who was assaulted and robbed in San Jose, and a 61-year-old Filipino man who was slashed on his face with a box cutter and left bleeding inside a subway train in NYC, all on social media. An attack against an elderly Asian American is an attack against the most vulnerable of an already marginalized population. But no one else seems to care except us.

我是在社交媒体上发现Vicha Ratanapakdee的，他是一名84岁的泰国裔男子，在旧金山的大街上行走时被强行推倒在地并惨遭杀害，一名64岁的奶奶在圣何塞遭到袭击和抢劫，一名61岁的菲律宾裔男子在纽约市的地铁列车内被人用刀割伤脸部并流血。 对亚裔美国老人的攻击，就是对已经被边缘化的人群中最弱势的人的攻击。但除了我们，似乎没有人关心。

This lack of acknowledgement is nothing new for Asian Americans. We are used to being ignored. We are used to minimizing our own pain because we don’t want to rock the boat.

对美国亚裔来说，这种不被承认的情况并不新鲜。我们习惯于被忽视。我们习惯于把自己的痛苦降到最低，因为我们不想找麻烦。

Although there is a world of diversity among Asians, these cultural ideals have forged a shared minority experience: Asians are extremely collective with strong family values and a sense of putting others first. This is clearly evident in how Asian countries have handled the spread of COVID-19. We wear masks not for ourselves, but to protect those around us. We come from countries where we are born with a sense of duty to our families and regard our neighbors as one of our own.

虽然亚裔中也存在着广泛的多样性，但有些文化铸就了这个少数族裔的共同经验。亚洲人的集体观念极强，具有强烈的家庭价值观和以人为本的意识。这一点从亚洲国家如何处理新冠病毒的传播就可以清楚地看出。我们戴口罩不是为了自己，而是为了保护身边的人。我们来自这样的国家，在那里，我们生来就有对家庭的责任感，并把我们的邻居视为自己人。

As children, we were taught not to talk back, to be respectful, and to be mindful of others. As adults, we continue to be silent and fear taking up space when discussing racism in America because we don’t want to diminish other minority groups’ experiences. Our repeated racial trauma and childhood conditioning prevent us from speaking up and making our voices heard.

小时候，我们被教导不要顶嘴，要尊重他人，要注意他人。作为成年人，我们继续保持沉默，害怕在讨论美国的种族主义时引起注意，因为我们不想贬低其他少数群体。我们反复的种族创伤和童年的经历使我们无法大声说话，无法让别人听到我们的声音。

Steven Yeun, star of Minari — a film that was written, directed by, produced by and starring Americans, and set in America, but was only nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes — recently said this in an interview with The New York Times Magazine: “Sometimes I wonder if the Asian-American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but nobody else is thinking about you.” This hit home.

史蒂文-元，《明日之子》的主演——这部由美国人自编、自导、自制、自演的电影，故事发生在美国，但却获得了金球奖最佳外语片的提名——最近在接受《纽约时报》杂志采访时说了这样一句话。"有时候我在想，亚裔美国人的经历是否就是当你为别人着想时，别人却没有为你着想的样子。" 这话说得很有道理。

I feel guilty writing this during Black History Month and in a time when all eyes should be on the injustices of anti-Blackness in America. I am fully aware that the oppression against Asians is nothing compared to what Black Americans have experienced and still experience to this day. It makes me want to sit back and hold my tongue, as I’ve become so accustomed to doing. It is this same conditioned minimization that sets off the narrative in my mind of your experience isn’t valid because you didn’t have it as bad. But comparing who had it worse and whataboutism doesn’t further anti-racism.

在黑人历史月期间，在所有人都应该关注美国黑人遭遇的不公正现象的时候，我写下这篇文章，感到有点内疚。我完全知道，与美国黑人所经历的和至今仍在经历的境遇相比，对亚裔的压迫根本不算什么。这让我想坐下来忍气吞声，因为我已经习惯了这样做。也正是这种条件反射式的自我贬低，在我心中掀起了这些压迫并不存在、不成立的想法，因为你（与黑人相比）过的没有那么糟糕。但是比较谁的情况更糟糕，并不能进一步推动反种族歧视。

Instead, it pits us against one another — just as the Model Minority Myth was designed to do.

取而代之的是，它会使我们彼此更加对立，就像“模范少数族裔”（在美国，亚裔被称为模范少数族裔）这个神话就是被设计用来做这个的那样。

As a psychotherapist who works with Asian and immigrant populations in both public and private settings, the most prevailing emotions I help clients process are guilt and shame. I believe these feelings derive from our collective roots that often teeter on codependency.

作为一名在公共和私人环境中为亚裔移民群体服务的心理治疗师，我帮助客户处理的最普遍的情绪是内疚和羞愧。我相信这些情绪来自于我们的集体根源，而这种根源往往会让人产生依赖性。

For many, our life’s mission is to make our parents proud. We can’t help but seek others’ approval, and we care deeply about what others think about us. It is this cultural norm that has made us susceptible and vulnerable to the Model Minority Myth, which argues that if we behave and work hard enough, we will finally be seen as equals — as white. In addition, this myth perpetuates that racism, including more than two centuries of Black enslavement, can be overcome by hard work and strong family values.

对于很多人来说，我们的人生的使命就是让父母骄傲。我们不由自主地寻求别人的认可，我们非常在意别人对我们的看法。正是这种文化，使我们很容易受到 "模范少数族裔 "神话的影响和伤害，该神话认为，如果我们表现得足够好，足够努力，我们最终会被视为与白人平等的人。此外，这一神话使得种族主义，包括两个多世纪对黑人的奴役，可以通过努力工作和强大的家庭价值观来洗白。

It’s why I, a non-Black person of color, have a hard time discussing racism against Asians in America. To this day, I feel self-conscious calling myself a person of color due to my proximity to whiteness. However, this proximity doesn’t make me white either, as I am regularly reminded of this when people of all colors — white, Black, and everything in between — tell me that I don’t belong here.

这就是为什么我，一个非黑人的有色人种，很难讨论美国对亚裔的种族主义。时至今日，我自觉称自己为有色人种，即使我的肤色更接近白人。然而，这种接近也并不使我成为白人，因为各色人等——白人、黑人以及介于两者之间的一切人告诉我，我不属于这里时，我经常被提醒这一点。

Since we don’t talk about it and call it out, racism against Asians has become normalized. It took me years of therapy, grad school and understanding my trauma responses for me to recognize what got me so frozen in those moments of confrontation and that if I wanted things to change I had to speak up. In the words of one of my professors in my master of social work program, “if you’re not confronting, you’re enabling.

由于我们不谈论它和呼吁它，针对亚洲人的种族主义已经变得正常化。我花了好几年的时间接受治疗，读研究生，了解自己的创伤反应，才认识到是什么让我和那些对抗的时刻如此僵硬，如果我想让事情有所改变，我就必须大声说话。用我在社会工作硕士课程中的一位教授的话说，"如果你不反抗，你就是在纵容。”

What’s even worse is when we do finally muster the courage to speak up, sometimes we are met with dismissing comments like “Well that’s not racism” or “What’s so bad about that?” This reinforces the feelings of being dismissed and feeling unimportant — things we may have internalized as non-Black people of color and children of immigrants whose experiences pale in comparison to our immigrant parents’ traumatic past.

更糟糕的是，当我们最终鼓起勇气说出来的时候，有时我们会得到诸如 "这又不是种族主义 "或 "这有什么不对的？"之类的否定意见。 "这就加强了我们被忽视的感觉——我们已经内化为非黑人有色人种的和移民的孩子，他们的经历与我们移民父母痛苦的过去相比显得苍白。

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) experience complex racial trauma on a daily basis. Complex trauma refers to any kind of trauma (physical, psychological, emotional, societal, etc.) that occurs repeatedly and cumulatively.

BIPOC（黑人，原住民，有色人种）每天都在经历复杂的种族创伤。复杂的创伤指的是反复和累积发生的任何类型的创伤(身体、心理、情感、社会等)。

Those who experience complex trauma have a tendency to feel unheard, unseen and unable to make change. What is unique about complex racial trauma is that it occurs on both societal and individual levels. The world that we exist in tells us that we don’t matter, our family’s words at home also reflect this sentiment, and we begin to internalize these negative core beliefs.

经历过复杂创伤的人有一种倾向，即觉得自己不被听到、不被看到，也无法做出改变。复杂的种族创伤的独特之处在于，它发生在社会和个人两个层面。我们所处的世界告诉我们，我们并不重要，家人在家里的言语也反映了这种情绪，我们开始将这些消极的核心信念内化。

These negative core beliefs then manifest in our daily lives in myriad ways. We come to believe that we don’t matter and behave in ways that reflect this belief — at home, work, school, and in our relationships — becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. What other people see is that we are submissive, quiet and reserved. What we actually feel is that we are not as important, therefore we should just follow others’ opinions and desires. Why speak up when no one else cares anyway?

这些消极的核心信念在我们的日常生活中以各种方式表现出来。我们开始相信自己并不重要，并以反映这种信念的方式行事——在家庭、工作、学校和我们的关系中——真是一语成谶。别人看到的是我们的顺从、安静、矜持。我们实际感受到的是——我们并不那么重要，因此我们应该只听从别人的意见和欲望。反正别人都不在乎，何必说出来呢？

As we continue to practice anti-racism and work toward more diversity and inclusion, individually and collectively, I hope that we can do just that and involve all groups in the discussion. We can’t call ourselves anti-racists until we acknowledge all marginalized people, including Asian Americans.

在我们继续践行反种族主义，努力实现更多的多样性和包容性的同时，我希望我们能够做到这一点，让所有群体都参与讨论。在我们承认包括亚裔美国人在内的所有边缘化人群之前，我们不能称自己为反种族主义者。