《骨》:唐人街的内部故事

Bone: Telling the Inside Story of Chinatown

在华裔美国作家伍慧明的《骨》中,空间承担着重要的叙事功能:作者以文本中的地点和空间为导向,讲述唐人街上华裔的历史,探索早期美国排华政策对唐人街社区和华裔族群所产生的后续影响;通过一系列空间场景的描绘,展现唐人街华人劳工阶层日常生活的艰辛,并以此批判种族化劳工在美国社会经济体系下所承受的残酷剥削;《骨》中唐人街内与外的空间对比与唐人街华人的空间体验消解了官方叙事中的同化神话,凸显出存在于唐人街与主流社会之间的社会及心理鸿沟、华人融入主流社会的种种障碍和艰难。

In Fae Myenne Ng＇s Bone, space serves as an important narrator. The space-oriented narratives help to reconstruct the history of early Chinese immigrants and explore the lingering effects of U.S.exclusionary laws on Chinatown and Chinese community. The delineation of a series of spatial scenes reveals the hardship and toil of Chinatown labor class and thereby critiques the exploitation of racialized labor in American capitalist system. Spatial experiences of Chinese immigrants inside and outside Chinatown undermines the assimilation myth in U.S. official narratives and exposes the social and psychological barriers which renders it difficult for Chinese immigrants to be incorporated into the mainstream society.