多文化背景的优势

The intensity of this American political season is stretching all the way to China, with thousands of expats here and elsewhere trying to keep up with the news and watch debates, which have generally taken the place smack in the middle of our work mornings. In addition to many Americans casting absentee ballots in their home states' primaries, over 23,000 registered Democrats cast votes in the Democrats Abroad Global Primary held Feb. 5-12. (Republicans Abroad didn't have a similar election).

Barack Obama won the global primary with 65% of the total. While every voter has their own motivations and their own set of priority issues, I think that the expat kinship for the Illinois senator lies at least in part in the fact that he is in many ways an expat himself. This has struck a chord with many of the millions of Americans living abroad, as well as with those of complex backgrounds.

Though he doesn't seem to address it much, Sen. Obama's international childhood has factored heavily into the campaign dynamics. The son of an American mother and a Kenyan father, he was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia for four years as a child, and these complex origins have raised questions about his heritage and loyalty. Some people have spread or accepted false rumors, such as stories that Sen. Obama attended an orthodox Muslim religious academy while living in Indonesia. These stories have been picked up by magazines and television stations and have continued to circulate even after being proven untrue. (A complete history of the tales and their debunking is available at the urban legend tracking Web site snopes.com.)

The traction of these false stories may be rooted in a lack of understanding about how a person's ethnicity can be something other than singular. Yet, this kind of background is reality for an increasing number of people all over the world, including Americans. Even many people who don't spend time outside the U.S. may have parents of mixed ancestry and/or live in a number of places within the country, making it difficult to give a simple answer to the question, 'Where are you from?'

'I see a lot of discussion seeking to make Barack Obama seem pathological because people don't know how to measure and define him, then fit him into one of the normal, prearranged slots for 'diversity,'' says Ruth van Reken, co-author of the 1998 book Third Culture Kids, a guide to raising children outside of their home culture. The title refers to children who aren't fully of their parents' home culture or of the culture of their current home, but rather of a hybrid 'third culture' -- essentially, a new way of defining culture by shared experience rather than shared ethnicity or nationality.

Ms. Van Reken says Sen. Obama is a third culture kid, and that while this should be viewed as a strength because it affords him the ability to serve 'a cultural bridge,' it is instead sometimes viewed as a flaw as it raises concerns about whether he is American enough to be president.

Ada Shen, an American living in Beijing, also finds the senator's ease with his multiracial ethnicity to be a large part of his attraction -- a good match for her perspective as an expat.

'Living abroad for any length of time helps you understand the central truth of that almost embarrassing cliche 'we're all just people,'' says Ms. Shen. 'Obama is post-racial in the sense that he understands this and can speak to race and culture in a way that resonates with many of us living abroad, but also, I think, with a whole generation of people back home who came of age after the Civil Rights era who don't want to view everything through a racial lens.'

When I taught a writing seminar this winter I was struck by the work of a student named Senami Apithy, the daughter of the ambassador from the African nation of Benin to China. A striking young woman whose heritage would be impossible to discern from her appearance, she wrote about how the bewildered coverage of Barack Obama's ethnicity caused her to ponder her own polyglot background and the bafflement it caused so many people.

'Imagine me saying that I'm from Benin, France, Togo, Sierra Leone, U.K., Greece, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Saudi Arabia,' she wrote. Ultimately, she considers herself to be equally Beninese and French, but says people often feel dissatisfied with either answer, questioning where she's 'really from.'

Ms. Apithy's background is extreme but not atypical. My friends' kids have an American mother and an Ethiopian father and have lived virtually their whole lives in China. They are American but where are they 'from?' What about an American child born in China who has never lived on U.S. soil? If these kids run for office in 40 years, will people question their patriotism or wonder if they are real Americans? I think not, but some of the interactions I have give me pause.

I have run into American tourists around Beijing while on field trips with my kids' school and seen their surprised reactions. Some can't get over the fact that there are English-language schools in China, while others don't understand why there are Chinese children in China speaking perfect, unaccented English. Some of these children are Chinese American, while others hail from Hong Kong. But after a bit of time in China, these tourists seem to forget that people that look like locals here could actually hail from anywhere. Their confusion both amuses and alarms me, but others who have lived abroad for longer call me naïve.

'I have lived in China for 10 years and when I go back to America I feel like people are living under a media cone, viewing the world from within a sheltered, closed system,' says Ms. Shen, referring to the wider perspective that she and many other expats feel one gets from living abroad.

Ms. Shen, formerly of Orange County, Calif., was one of about 15 volunteers who recently gathered to call voters in Ohio and Texas from Beijing ahead of those two states' primaries, trying to get them to go to the polls to vote for Sen. Obama. I listened to their impassioned pitches, which usually began with 'I'm calling from Beijing, China because I feel so strongly...'

I'm not sure how much of an impact that had on people on the other end, or even whether any impact was positive or negative. But the whole operation served as a powerful reminder that Americans don't give up the right to participate in our democracy even when we choose to live outside the country.

眼下美国大选紧张激烈的气氛甚至在中国也能感觉到：数千名在华美国人都在密切关注新闻并观看竞选人电视辩论会，不过由于时差的关系，辩论会通常都是在中国人上午上班的时间。很多美国人在本州的初选中参加了缺席投票，此外，在2月5日至12日举行的民主党海外部全球初选中，有超过2.3万名登记在册的民主党人投了票。（共和党海外部没有举行类似的投票。）

巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)以65%的票数获得了民主党海外部全球初选的胜利。虽然每个选民都有自己的动机和优先考虑的问题，但我认为，这么多海外美国人投了奥巴马的票，至少有部分原因是他本人从很大程度上讲也是个“在国外”生活的人。他的这种背景在数百万海外美国人及背景复杂的人中间引起了共鸣。

虽然奥巴马似乎并没有太多地提到自己的童年在国外度过，但这种经历对他的竞选产生了极大影响。他的母亲是美国人，父亲是肯尼亚人，他出生在夏威夷，童年时在印度尼西亚住了四年，这种复杂的背景使得一些人对他的传承和忠诚产生了质疑。有些人散布或是听信谣言，其中有一则称奥巴马在印度尼西亚的时候曾就读过正统的穆斯林宗教学院。尽管已经证实这些故事都是假的，但杂志和电视台仍在报导，并不断地传来传去。（snopes.com上有这些故事的来龙去脉和辟谣的经过。）

这些谣言广为流传，其根源可能是因为人们不大能理解一个人的血统怎么会那么“混合”。不过，混合血统正成为世界各地越来越多的人所面临的现实，包括美国人。很多人即使自己从未踏出国门，但他们的父母可能就是混血儿，或者在美国的很多地方生活过，因而，对“你是哪里人”这样的问题很难给出一个简单的答案。

广告1998年出版的《“第三文化”小孩》(Third Culture Kids)的作者之一鲁思•冯•雷肯(Ruth van Reken)说，我看到有很多讨论都想把奥巴马归为另类，因为人们不知道如何衡量和定义他，不知道该把他归入“多元化”中的哪一个已有的标准“类别”。《“第三文化”小孩》是一本指导父母在海外文化背景下如何抚养孩子的书籍。所谓“第三文化”指的是孩子的文化背景与其父母的本土文化不尽相同，与他目前所在国的文化也不相同，而是处于一种混合的“第三文化”环境下，这实际是一种按照共同的经历而非共同的血统或国籍来定义文化的新方法。

冯•雷肯说，奥巴马就是一个第三文化小孩，这应该被视为一种优势，因为他可以充当“文化沟通的桥梁”；可是有时却会被看作是一种缺点，因为这会让人们担心，让他当美国总统，他是否足够“美国”呢？

住在北京的Ada Shen是个美国人，她也发现，奥巴马对自己混合血统的泰然处之正是其一大魅力，很适合她这个海外美国人的视角。

她说，无论国外的生活经历是长是短，你都会更理解“我们同样都是人”这句话，虽然这话听起来太老套。她说：从某种意义上讲，奥巴马是后种族时代的人，因为他明白这一点，而且他谈论种族和文化的方式能引起很多住在国外的人的共鸣，而且，我认为除此之外，还能引起美国民权运动后成长起来的一代人的共鸣，这些人不希望看什么事情都透过种族的“有色眼镜”。

今年冬天在我任教的写作讨论课上，有一位学生的作文令我非常震惊。她叫Senami Apithy，是贝宁驻华大使的女儿。她是个惹人注意的年轻女子，但你从她的外表根本无法判断她的血统。她在作文中写道，有关奥巴马血统的混乱报导让她开始思考自己的多血统背景以及它带给许多人的困扰。

她写道，想像一下，我在自我介绍时说，我来自贝宁、法国、多哥、塞拉利昂、英国、希腊、刚果民主共和国、苏丹和沙特阿拉伯。最后，她认为自己可以算一半贝宁血统，一半法国血统，但她说人们常常对她的回答感到不满意，还是要追问她“到底是哪里人”。

Apithy的复杂背景有些极端，但并不是个例。我有个朋友是美国人，她丈夫是埃塞俄比亚人，他们的孩子从生下来就一直在中国生活。他们是美国人，但他们应该算是“从哪来”呢？如果一个小孩生在中国，从来没有在美国生活过，却拥有美国国籍，又会怎么样呢？如果这些孩子长大后参加总统竞选，人们会质疑他们爱不爱国或是怀疑他们是不是真正的美国人吗？我想不会，但我也接触过一些人，他们的反应却令我犹豫了。

我在参加孩子学校组织的出游活动时曾遇到过一些美国游客。有些人吃惊地无法相信中国还有英语学校，而有些人则不明白为什么这里还有中国孩子能说一口地道的英语。这些孩子有些是美籍华人，有些来自香港。但这些游客似乎忘记了，有些人虽然长得像中国人，却可能是从其他国家来的。他们的这种困惑既让我感到有趣，又给我敲了警钟，但那些在国外住了更久的人却说我太天真。

Ada Shen说：我已经在中国住了10年了，我回美国的时候，感觉人们好像生活在“象牙塔”里一样，好像是从一个封闭的系统看待外部世界，而她和很多生活在海外的人感觉，海外生活能让一个人视野更开阔。

Ada Shen来自美国加州橘郡。最近，在俄亥俄州和得克萨斯州初选前，她和其他十几位志愿者聚在一起给两州的选民打了电话，试图说服他们投奥巴马的票。我听到他们打电话时充满了热情，开头时他们常常会说“我是从中国北京打电话来的，我非常强烈地感觉到……”

我不知道这对电话那头的人有多大的影响，甚至不知道是正面影响还是负面影响。不过，他们的举动有力地说明，美国人即使选择在其他国家生活，也不会放弃参与民主的权利。