后现代语境下亚裔美国族裔身份政治的演变——读徐忠雄的小说《美国膝》

A Reading of Shawn Wong's American Knees

上世纪六七十年代的亚裔美国民族主义者反对主流文化将亚洲人与美国人对立起来的二元对立逻辑,但过多强调亚裔美国敏感性又构成了一个新的二元对立,即亚裔美国人与美国人之间的对立。虽然徐忠雄曾经是这种身份政治的开创者之一,但他在1995年出版的小说《美国膝》中批判性地审视了这种身份政治的负面影响,探讨了亚裔美国人超越二元对立逻辑、开创"第三空间"并由此获得多元身份的可能性。本文通过解读小说中这些潜藏的深刻涵义,旨在揭示在后现代多元语境下亚裔美国身份政治从二元对立向多元融合演变的原因和历史意义。

The Asian American cultural nationalists in the 1960s and 70s rhetorically refuted the mainstream logic dualism between the Asian and the American,yet their excessive emphasis on the Asian American sensibility paradoxically constructed another dichotomy between the Asian American and the American. Despite his prior significant role as an initiator of this cultural politics,Shawn Wong,in his recent novel American Knees,critically reflects on its oppression of the ethnic individual and explores the possibilities to transcend various binaries and to create a 'third space' for one's identity construction. This paper aims to examine the change and its implications in Shawn Wong's notions of Asian American identity politics in the postmodern context.