美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Refugees' Author Says We Should All Know What It Is To Be An Outsider

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

When Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen was 4 years old, he and his family came to the U.S. from Vietnam as refugees. His latest book of fiction is a collection of short stories called "The Refugees." Our co-host Ari Shapiro talked to him about the book and the refugee experience.

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE¹: When Viet Thanh Nguyen came into our studios, President Trump² had not yet issued his executive order restricting refugee admissions. I asked Nguyen about the similarities between the experiences of today's refugees and his family's arrival a generation ago.

VIET THANH NGUYEN: Every new refugee to a society, whether it's the United States or some other place, is subjected to fear. They are the new outsider population, the new other. And people of all backgrounds have a short memory. So when it comes to the Vietnamese, Americans now tend to think of the Vietnamese as being a particularly successful minority or refugee population that's assimilated fairly well.

They forget that 40, 50 years ago, Americans - the majority of Americans did not want to accept these Vietnamese refugees who they saw as completely foreign. Now there are new foreigners - Syrians and other people from the Middle East, people of Muslim backgrounds. And the sense among many Americans is, well, these people are completely different from us, and they're not like the Vietnamese who are much more assimilable. And I think that's very, very doubtful. I think that the majority of these new foreigners, if given the opportunity, will be able to assimilate and deal with American culture. And right now we are subject to a new kind of xenophobia that prevents us from seeing that.

SHAPIRO: Many of the characters in this book have double lives in one way or another. I mean, maybe they're carrying on an affair, maybe they work two jobs. And in a way it felt to me like versions of the two lives that every refugee contains inside of them before and after they leave their homeland.

NGUYEN: And I think that's true. There's that sense of a duplicity, a sense that there's something happening within the community - the ethnic³ community, and there's - within the family home. And there's a different life that's being lived outside among Americans. You have to wear a different face when you're interacting with the larger culture. And you can be more of yourself at home or in the local market or in the local church speaking your own language. That was my sense growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in San Jose.

SHAPIRO: Your writing is so obviously informed by your life experience. Is there a reason that you chose fiction rather than, say, memoir⁴?

NGUYEN: Well, I've tried memoir. I mean, I think there's one short story in "The Refugees" that's based on my family's life. And it's the only piece I'd written up until that point that incorporated anything autobiographical.

SHAPIRO: I don't think that was clearly flagged as such in the book. I wasn't aware as I read it that one of these was...

NGUYEN: Oh, yeah. I don't tell people. You know, it's not in the book that says this is my life. But the story "Warriors⁵" about the child of refugee shopkeepers and what happens to that family, that is drawn⁶ very much from my life and the lives of my parents. And it was a very difficult story to write because I think my parents' lives are worthy⁷ of writing about. I don't think my life is particularly worthy of writing about.

SHAPIRO: I'm looking back at this story - "The Warriors" - through different eyes now. And it's sort of about the way politics from the home country follows immigrants to the new country. It's pretty dark.

NGUYEN: It is a dark story. And that was pretty much what it was like to be a Vietnamese refugee in San Jose in the 1980s, that the politics of the war was not done. The war was not finished. People might like to think a war is done when a cease fire is signed, but for most people who lived through a war it goes on for decades. And in the 1980s, the struggle in the Vietnamese refugee community was still very much over the fact that people thought the war could still be fought again.

People were suspicious of the possibility of communist infiltrators. And that meant that there was a lot of fear in this community, that your neighbor might be a communist and you better not be seen as a communist. And on top of that, again, people were just trying to build their lives. And yet they were still struggling under the shadow of trauma⁸ and the legacy⁹ of violence that they brought over with them.

SHAPIRO: You write in the acknowledgements that your son will be about the age you were when you came over by the time this book is published. Do you think about how different his experience of America will be from yours?

NGUYEN: All the time. (Laughter) I came over when I was 4. I mean, my - basically my journey into - my initiation¹⁰ into memory, into consciousness happened in the refugee camp in the United States in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa. So I'm very much defined by this refugee experience of this sense of loss, of losing a country, of being separated from my parents once I came to the United States and living a life that I felt to be a life of privation, even though my parents provided so many material things.

And I look at my son. And he has pretty much everything he could possibly ask for and want for. And I don't want - wish to deny him those kinds of things, but that means that he will have a vastly different sense of security, of place of identity than I had when I was his age.

SHAPIRO: And do you think that's an unquestionably good thing, or is there something about the sense of not belonging 100 percent - of being something of an outsider - that you think is valuable, that you wish your son would have?

NGUYEN: Oh, I think it is a very valuable experience. And I wish not only my son but everybody had a sense of what it is like to be an outsider, to be an other. Because that is partly what gives rise to compassion¹¹ and to empathy, the sense that you are not always at the center of the universe. But how to attain¹² a sense of otherness, of compassion and of empathy without having to live a difficult life is something that I don't know how to provide any answer for.

SHAPIRO: Viet Thanh Nguyen's new collection of short stories is called "The Refugees." Thank you so much for talking with us.

NGUYEN: It was my pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO SONG, "DYE")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

3 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

4 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

5 warriors   

武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I like reading the stories ofancient warriors. 我喜欢读有关古代武士的故事。
• The warriors speared the man to death. 武士们把那个男子戳死了。

6 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

7 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

8 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

9 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

10 initiation   

n.开始

参考例句：

• her initiation into the world of marketing 她的初次涉足营销界
• It was my initiation into the world of high fashion. 这是我初次涉足高级时装界。

11 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。

12 attain   

vt.达到，获得，完成

参考例句：

• I used the scientific method to attain this end. 我用科学的方法来达到这一目的。
• His painstaking to attain his goal in life is praiseworthy. 他为实现人生目标所下的苦功是值得称赞的。