Family and Identity家庭與身份認同

凱特·塔特爾 瑪麗亞·卡里姆吉 劉麗麗

Whenever Nicole Chung， as a child， asked her mother about her birth parents， she always heard the same answer： they “had just moved here from Korea” and “thought they wouldn’t be able to give you the life you deserved.” This brief story， one of love and sadness and altruism， “may be all you can ever know，” her mother told her. “All You Can Ever Know” is now the title of Chung’s memoir. The phrase has a double meaning. It hints at the vastness of what can be gleaned1—true or false—from an origin story， even as it evokes a sense of permanent loss and incompletion.

Growing up with her adoptive white parents in a very white town in southern Oregon， Nicole Chung “kept a secret running tally of every single Asian person I had ever seen in public.” There were so few， and her isolation so internalized2， that even as a bookish little girl the stories she wrote didn’t include Asian characters. “Even when I was at my freest and most imaginative， peering beyond the limits of my own lived reality， I couldn’t picture someone like me at the center of the story，” Chung writes. “To be a hero， I thought， you have to be beautiful and adored. To be beautiful and adored， you had to be white.”

Her stunning debut memoir confronts enormous pain with precision， clarity， and grace. Chung was born in Seattle in 1981， two months premature， with an uncertain prognosis. Her birth parents were Korean immigrants already raising two girls， struggling both financially and in their marriage. Her adoptive parents saw her as a gift from God， the happy answer to the difficult questions posed by their infertility. Her adoption became a family story in which the right thing had happened; Nicole’s identity as a person of color in an all-white setting was an unimportant detail; and God had worked in mysterious ways. “The story， a lifeline3 cast when I was too young for deeper questions， continued to bring me comfort，” Chung writes.

As she grew， so did the questions. Chung first heard slurs in early grade school， the white boys who would pull the corners of their eyelids to mock her appearance， the white girls who asked demeaning4 questions. Her parents advised her to ignore the bullies， downplaying both the cruelty with which classmates mocked her for being adopted and the wounding force of the racism hurled at her.

“I never had a name for what was happening，” Chung notes. “My parents and I had certainly never discussed the possibility that I might encounter bigots5 within my school， our neighborhood， our family.” Their inability or unwillingness to talk about race and racism was and remains common among white parents， even the most well-meaning， but it left Chung disconnected from her own identity.

It wasn’t until she graduated from college that Chung began to understand her own experience as part of a larger story. “After a lifetime of feeling isolated by my adoption，” she writes， “I began to think of myself as part of a broader culture of people affected by it.” Understanding that narrative—and the complex issues of race and identity that were so little explored in her own childhood—gained urgency as Chung prepared to become a mother herself. She writes with an almost prescient6 wisdom that “no matter how a child joins your family， their presence changes all the rules; they move into your heart and build new rooms， knock down walls you never knew existed.”

After a protracted and unglamorous process of filing paperwork and wrangling7 lawyers， she’s alarmed to uncover the reality of the Chungs， her biological family. She has an older sister， Cindy， who was physically abused by their birth mother; their parents are divorced and not speaking; her birth father told Cindy that Nicole was dead. Previously， when thinking about her long-lost kin， Chung had pictured currents of strength flowing toward her： “a web of connections too delicate to be seen or touched， too strong to be completely severed.” With more information， the mystery of what travels along those hidden paths seems less benign. Mrs. Chung’s violent nature suggests， to Nicole， “an invisible thread connecting all my anxieties， my many shortcomings， all my worst moments.”

Chung’s reunion with her sister Cindy is told in expansive， detailed scenes that bring Chung’s adult emotions to life in sharp focus8： “Fat raindrops dotted my red sweater， mingled with9 the moisture on my face，” Chung writes about that moment. Her evolving relationship with her sister gives the book an additional emotional heart.

Though the story is intensely personal， it’s never myopic10 and， ultimately， it’s universal： a story about learning to grapple with11 our own identities， about learning where we belong， and about families.

小時候，每次問媽媽有關自己親生父母的事情，妮科爾·鄭得到同樣的回答：他們“那時候剛剛從韓國移民過來”;他們“認為無法給你應有的生活”。這個集愛、悲傷與無私的簡要故事，“大概是你所能知道的一切”了，媽媽這樣告訴她。“你所能知道的一切”現在成了妮科爾·鄭自傳的書名。這個短語包含兩層意思：它一方面暗示，我們能從這個溯本求源的故事中收獲無盡的信息——無論真假;另一方面，它讓人產生一種永久失去與不完整的感覺。

妮科爾·鄭由白人養父母撫養長大，生活在俄勒岡州南部一個白人小鎮上，“總是偷偷留意在公眾場所碰到過的每一個亞洲面孔”。可是那里的亞洲人實在太少，孤立感隱藏在她內心深處，即便小時候愛讀書的她寫的故事里也沒有亞洲人的角色。“甚至在我最隨意、想象力最豐富的時候，審視自己生存現實的局限，我也無法想象將像我一樣的亞洲人置于故事中心會是什么樣子。”鄭寫道，“我一直覺得，主人公一定要既漂亮又可愛，而這樣的人物非白人莫屬。”

這是妮科爾·鄭令人印象深刻的首部回憶錄，直面巨大的傷痛，表達準確、清晰而優美。鄭1981年出生于西雅圖，帶著“預后難定”的診斷結果早產了兩個月。她的親生父母是來自韓國的移民，當時帶著兩個女兒的他們生活拮據，又面臨婚姻危機。在養父母心中，她是一份來自上帝的禮物，他們因不孕不育而面臨的各種難題由此得到圓滿的解決。領養她是家族故事中一個無比正確的決定;白人環境中妮科爾的黃皮膚是一個無關緊要的細節;這是上帝的神來之筆。“我兒時還參不透深奧問題，這個故事便是我的救命稻草，一直帶給我安慰。”鄭寫道。

隨著鄭慢慢長大，她心頭的問題也越來越多。第一次被惡語中傷是在小學低年級的時候，那些白人男孩用手拉長眼角，以此取笑她的亞洲人面孔，白人女孩則問她一些傷自尊的問題。養父母叫她不要理會那些，至于同班同學對她領養身份的無情嘲弄以及種族歧視帶給她的傷害，他們也叫她不要放在心上。

“對那時發生的事，我不知怎么描述。”鄭寫道，“關于我在學校、社區甚至家族中可能會遭遇偏見，爸爸媽媽從來沒跟我討論過。”不過在當時，白人父母無法或者不愿談論種族和種族歧視的情況非常普遍，雖是出于最大的善意，卻使鄭迷失在自己的身份認同問題上。

直到大學畢業，鄭才開始意識到，她的個人經歷只不過是宏大背景下的一個小故事。“因為領養身份而一生感到孤立，”她寫道，“至此我才開始明白，除了自己之外，還有很多不同文化背景的人有著相同的經歷。”理解這種經歷，懂得她童年時期幾乎未曾探究過的復雜的種族和身份認同問題，對準備做母親的鄭來說顯得尤為緊要。她的筆觸飽含預知的智慧：“一個孩子無論以何種方式成為你家庭的一員，他們的存在都會讓你的生活發生天翻地覆的變化;他們會住進你的心里，在那里開疆拓土，將你之前根本沒有意識到的內心隔閡一一破除。”

經過曠日持久、單調乏味的申請程序和司法辯論之后，她終于忐忑不安地獲悉了鄭家的現狀，找到了她的親生家人。她有一個姐姐，叫辛迪，小時候經常遭受母親的打罵;她們的父母早已離婚，不再聯系;她的生父曾告訴辛迪，妮科爾已經不在人世。在這之前，每次一想到自己失散已久的家人，妮科爾總會感覺有一股股力量向她涌過來：“一張親情的網，那么脆弱，看不見，也摸不著;卻又是那么強韌，無法完全切斷。”隨著更多信息浮出水面，隱藏的神秘過往似乎不那么無害了。在妮科爾看來，鄭太太的暴力傾向“像一根無形的線，將我心中所有的焦慮、我很多的缺點以及我所有最糟糕的經歷串聯起來。”

與姐姐辛迪的會面，妮科爾在書中作了詳盡而細致的描述，清晰而生動地刻畫了自己成年人的情感：“豆大的雨滴打濕了我紅色的毛衣，與我臉上流淌的淚水混為一體。”鄭這樣寫道。她與姐姐相認的故事讓本書的情感更加豐富。

盡管這個故事講述的是個人經歷，但其意義絕不膚淺，最重要的是，它包含了普世價值：這是一個關于處理自我身份認同問題、找到歸屬、探尋家庭意義的故事。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎選手）