In the 1930s, there was a Chinese-American actress named Anna May Wong who was quite well-known in Hollywood. She made every head turn when visiting pre-World War II Shanghai. But back home -- America -- she had to live with all the stereotyped roles assigned to her, which made her cry deep inside. She had no doubt that she deserved better, much better. And yet she could only do so much. Anna May Wong’s fellow Chinese Americans did not generally fare better. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act kept Chinese from entering or reentering America. Dr. Sun Yat-sen was once held up under this racist act. Slowly but surely, though, racial tolerance had been working its way into mainstream America since World War II and the F.D. Roosevelt administration. For the record, however, the number of Chinese Americans only inched up because the slope was too steep. In 1960, there were no more than 240,000 Chinese in the Beautiful Country.
Then ice broke. In 1965, Congress passed the Immigration and Naturalization Act. This opened the floodgates for Chinese immigrants among other Asians and along with Africans, Middle Easterners, and Latin Americans. The 2020 U.S. Census reports that there are 5.2 million Americans claiming the Chinese heritage as theirs. Minority or otherwise, we are Americans first and foremost. Like every American, we are entitled to freedom and dignity, no more and no less. Meanwhile, we must understand that freedom is not free and never will be.
Personally, I am looking forward to the day when the term “hyphenated American” becomes obsolete.
带连字号的美国人
美国是一个移民国家。先入为主；后来者就被看作客居人士。（中国不是也有“客家人”么？） 便于识别，更因语言差异，自然先问贵乡：您从哪里来的？帶连字号的美国人由此产生。
1889年“带连字号的美国人”正式在文书出现。不过一旦见之于文，反应就与口头心底说说大有不同。1904年“公知”们开始笔伐始作俑者。1915年前任总统西奥多·罗斯福有意卷土重来；他的演说主题之一，正就是以团结各裔为理由、公开主张单称美国人。
然而，在日常生活中，刚好相反，彼此友善也好，不友善也好，都以其祖裔相称。例如，传媒喜欢说：纽约、芝加哥白人警察多数是爱尔兰人。不无讽剌的是、有好一段时间，尤其是在十九世纪中叶，特别在麻萨诸塞州，爱尔兰人备受歧视，不少被驱赶离市离州；更有雇主干脆在门窗上贴此告示：招聘雇员，唯爱尔兰人免问。
值得一提的是、1988年12月20日美联社作此报道：“黑人民权运动领袖”之一杰西·杰克逊“宣告”黑人是非洲裔美国人。左翼主导的主流传媒，包括好莱坞（荷里活），立即加以推波助澜。政客更自不待言。时至今日，搞“肤色政治”，打种族牌，直接或间接鼓吹“连字号的美国人”的风气又再大行其道。
当然，何止美国如是，西欧也不遑多让。
—— Lingyang Jiang
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