Earlier this year, the publication of Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother incited a collective airing out of many varieties of race-based hysteria. But absent from the millions of words written in response to the book was any serious consideration of whether Asian Americans were in fact taking over this country. If it is true that they are collectively dominating in elite high schools and universities, is it also true that Asian Americans are dominating in the real world? My strong suspicion was that this was not so, and that the reasons would not be hard to find. If we are a collective juggernaut that inspires such awe and fear, why does it seem that so many Asians are so readily perceived to be, as I myself have felt, the products of a timid culture, easily pushed around by more assertive people, and thus basically invisible?
今年早些时候，蔡美儿所著的《虎妈战歌》的出版激起了各种带有种族成见的歇斯底里说辞。但是，在众多对该书的评论之中，没有任何一条认真地考虑过“亚裔美国人是否曾经真的主导这个国家”的问题。假设亚裔学生集体在名牌高中和大学的成绩和表现确实更好，那么亚裔美国人是否在现实世界中获得了同样的主导地位？我怀疑结果并非如此，而其原因也不难发现。我经常感到，如果我们真像描绘的那样是一个令人敬畏惧怕的集体，那为什么还有那么多亚裔经常被认为是一种过于谨小慎微文化的产物，很容易被那些更加自信的人所左右。从根本上来说，这不就是隐形人吗？
A few months ago, I received an e-mail from a young man named Jefferson Mao, who after attending Stuyvesant High School had recently graduated from the University of Chicago. He wanted my advice about "being an Asian writer." This is how he described himself: "I got good grades and I love literature and I want to be a writer and an intellectual; at the same time, I'm the first person in my family to go to college, my parents don't speak English very well, and we don't own the apartment in Flushing that we live in. I mean, I'm proud of my parents and my neighborhood and what I perceive to be my artistic potential or whatever, but sometimes I feel like I'm jumping the gun a generation or two too early."
几个月前，一个名叫杰弗逊·毛的年轻人给我发了一封电子邮件。他曾就读于史岱文森高中，现已从芝加哥大学毕业。他向我征求建议，想要成为一名亚裔作家。他是这么描述自己的：“我成绩优异，热爱文学并且想成为一名作家和知识分子；另外，我是家里的第一个大学生，父母英语说得不好，我们至今都没能买下我们在法拉盛租住的公寓。我的意思是，我为自己的父母和社区感到自豪，我认为自己有艺术等方面的潜能，但有时候，我感觉自己作为第一代移民家庭的儿子就有这种想法，是不是太过心急了？也许再等一两代才比较合适。”
One bright, cold Sunday afternoon, I ride the 7 train to its last stop in Flushing, where the storefront signs are all written in Chinese and the sidewalks are a slow-moving river of impassive faces. Mao is waiting for me at the entrance of the Main Street subway station, and together we walk to a nearby Vietnamese restaurant.
一个晴朗而寒冷的星期日下午，我乘坐地铁7号线到法拉盛的最后一站。那里所有的店面都挂着中文招牌，人行道上缓慢走动的人流带着一张张毫无表情的面孔。毛在缅街地铁站的入口处等着我，我们一起去了附近的一家越南菜馆。
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