转自：CGTN
Broken dreams in a 'Promised Land'
Editor's note: Wretched City upon a Hill is a 10-part series examining the clash between America's cherished beliefs about its democracy and the jarring truth about how the system fails in practice. The fourth essay is about immigrants in America.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Puritans found a haven in North America. The Mayflower and other ships brought them across the Atlantic Ocean, away from religious persecution in Europe. In the centuries since, millions of immigrants in pursuit of American Dream headed to the "promised land" of the United States, a symbol of freedom, equality, and opportunity.
Some lucky ones did find success, but for many, the American Dream vanished, leaving only harsh reality. Jair, Yovani and Misael, three young men from a village in Mexico, were found dead in an abandoned airless trailer on a desolate road in San Antonio when they tried to go north to Austin, Texas.
Geremias Romero was born and raised in the U.S., but was unable to find a teaching job due to bigotry because his parents are Salvadoran. He ended up working in the fields for $8.25 an hour to support himself.
Ma Guiying from Fushun, Northeastern China had been working hard in the U.S. for years with her husband to pay for their children's education. She ended up killed on the streets of New York City in an anti-Asian assault.
Xenophobia, racism and structural inequalities mean the journey to American Dream is doomed to fail for all but the luckiest immigrants. A soaring cost of living, rising racist sentiments, and hostile immigration policies in recent years have made things worse for immigrants.
The U.S. is a country founded by immigrants, but xenophobia and racism have been present throughout the American history, inflicting great physical and mental pain on immigrants. More than 80 million immigrants have come to the U.S. in the past 200 years, but the government has deported at least 57 million immigrants since 1892 – more than any other country.
In the 19th century, immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and China triggered anti-immigrant sentiments among Americans – mainly Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The native-born Americans considered immigrants to be undesirable. Irish Catholics were particularly attacked. In the Bible Riots of 1844, fierce fighting broke out between nativist groups in Philadelphia and Irish Catholics, destroying two Catholic churches and other buildings.
Native-born White Americans were unhappy about economic competition brought by Chinese immigrants, and treated Chinese as inferior. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act imposed a 10-year ban on Chinese immigrants, prohibiting them from becoming U.S. citizens. This coincided with rampant anti-Chinese violence.
Today, rural Whites are witnessing their economic and social status declining with the stratifying U.S. economy. This has stoked a rise in White supremacy and xenophobia in American society. Immigrants and their descendants are the victims. Anti-Semitic sentiment in the U.S. is on the rise. In 2021, the U.S. recorded 2,717 assaults against the Jewish community, the highest number on record. During the pandemic, anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. surged, with an increase of 77 percent from 2019 to 2020. More than 9,000 anti-Asian hate incidents were self-reported to STOP AAPI Hate, an advocacy group, from March 2020 to June 2021.
According to an NPR poll in 2022, U.S. support for immigration is declining, and a considerable percentage of Americans view immigration from South America as an "invasion" at the southern U.S. border. Rising xenophobia and frequent hate crimes have imposed tremendous pressure on immigrants, making it harder for them to integrate into American society.
People rally to protest against anti-Asian hate crimes on Foley Square in New York, the United States, April 4, 2021. /Xinhua
Systemic racial discrimination and structural inequality mean that immigrants must make extra efforts to succeed. There is a ceiling to what they can achieve. Some minority groups have gained equal lawful rights with White Americans through unremitting efforts, on paper at least. But racism and inequality are still deeply rooted in the economic, judicial, and educational systems of American society. Immigrants encounter frequent discrimination from police, banks, schools, corporations, and government agencies.
Studies have found that White children from low-income families are more likely to get government benefits than their Black counterparts. When Black and Asian Americans change their resumes by using names that sound like White Americans, they get more interviews. As an important part of the U.S. workforce, immigrants are mostly found in non-management positions, in the agriculture, forestry, waste management, maintenance services, construction, catering and hospitality sectors.
College-educated immigrants face obstacles in employment. Their education and work experience in their home country are often unrecognized in the U.S. This, as well as cultural differences in the interview process, makes it difficult for them to find jobs that match their education and experience. In 2018 alone, there were approximately 2.2 million college-educated immigrants who were unemployed or occupied in low-skilled jobs including dishwashing, security, and cab driving – a huge waste of human potential.
It takes several generations on average for immigrants to make their way to the middle class or beyond in the United States. The first generation has to overcome linguistic and cultural differences, do low-paying jobs disliked by White Americans, and live in their own ethnic neighborhoods for a greater sense of safety. Their children who grew up or were born in the U.S. have no language barrier, but they still need to overcome identity crises and make extraordinary efforts to bridge the gap with their White peers in educational resources, social capital, and wealth.
The situation for undocumented immigrants is even worse. After the hardship of arriving in the U.S., they live in constant fear of being reported and deported, and are more likely to be discriminated against at work and suffer from racial or sexual harassment. Their children may one day witness the parents being deported or arrested, and live in the U.S. on their own.
In 1931, American author James Adams wrote in his book The Epic of America that the American Dream was not just a dream of more material wealth, but also "a dream of a social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest statute of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."
However, the personal experiences of immigrants in the U.S. over the years have de-romanticized this dream and revealed the pain and suffering behind it. With deep-rooted racism, structural inequality, and rising xenophobia in the U.S., immigrants quickly wake up from their dream of equality and golden opportunities.
(The author, Yu Feng, is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on Twitter to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)
梦碎“应许之地”
17世纪初，在欧洲遭遇宗教迫害的清教徒们乘坐“五月花号”跨越大西洋，在北美找到了避风港。此后的几百年来，成千上百万移民者背井离乡、飘洋过海，前往美国这片被认为象征“自由、平等与机遇”的“应许之地”，追求属于他们的“美国梦”。
虽然不乏少数幸运儿和成功者，但大多数移民的“圆梦之旅”充满坎坷甚至血泪：来自墨西哥小镇的三个年轻人雅伊尔、乔凡尼和米萨尔试图北上德克萨斯州的奥斯汀寻找成功机遇，却被遗弃在圣安东尼奥的一条荒凉小径上，窒息在一辆拖车内，魂断“寻梦之路”；格雷米亚斯·罗梅罗虽是土生土长的美国人，但作为萨尔瓦多移民后代的他不可避免地遭遇职业天花板，即使有过特殊教育教师的经验，也找不到教学工作，最终只能以每小时8.25美元的工资在田间劳作来养活自己；来自中国东北抚顺的马桂英和丈夫艰苦朴素地扎根于美国多年，以勤恳的工作供子女上学，却因亚裔仇恨惨死纽约街头，与相濡以沫的丈夫天人永隔……
事实上，排外主义、种族主义和美国社会的结构性不平等早已注定美国移民的圆梦之旅终将布满荆棘。特别是近些年来，美国经济环境的恶化、社会氛围的变化以及移民政策的收缩更加速了不少移民美国梦的破灭。
一方面，尽管美国是一个由移民建立的国家，排外主义和种族主义却始终贯穿于美国的移民史，给移民带来巨大的身心创伤。在过去的200年里，美国接纳了超过8000万的移民；但自1892年起，美国也遣返了超过5700万的移民，是世界上遣返移民最多的国家。早在19世纪，大量来自爱尔兰、德国和中国的移民引发了部分本土美国人（主要是盎格鲁撒克逊新教徒）的反移民情绪。这些移民被认为是“不受欢迎的人”，其中爱尔兰天主教徒受到了尤为猛烈的攻击——在1844年的圣经暴动中，费城的本土主义者与爱尔兰天主教徒发生枪战，并摧毁了两座天主教堂。同时，本土白人不满于华人移民所带来的经济竞争，将其视为低人一等的种族，推动1882年《排华法案》的出台，要求在10年内禁止来自中国的所有移民，禁止中国移民成为美国公民，并催生各种反华暴力事件。
如今，随着美国经济环境的日益恶化，盎格鲁撒克逊白人经济和社会地位的相对下降刺激了美国社会白人至上主义和仇外情绪的高涨。外来移民及其后裔不幸地成为这部分群体内心愤懑与不满的转嫁对象，生存环境日益恶劣。例如，美国的反犹主义情绪在近年来日渐高涨，针对犹太人群体的袭击案件在2021年多达2717起，创下自1979年有记录以来的历史新高。新冠肺炎疫情期间，美国境内的亚裔仇恨犯罪激增：2020年针对亚裔的仇恨犯罪比2019年增加了77%，仅从2020年3月到2021年6月，“停止仇恨亚太裔”组织就收到9000多起来自亚裔自己报告的亚裔仇恨事件。此外，NPR在2022年的一项民调显示，美国人对移民的支持有所下降，甚至有很大一部分美国人把自南美地区的移民看作是对美国南部边境的“入侵”。美国社会日渐高涨的排外和仇外情绪，以及频繁发生的针对少数族裔的仇恨犯罪事件都给身处美国的移民群体带来沉重的心理负担与环境压力，加大了其融入美国社会的难度。
另一方面，美国社会的系统性种族歧视和结构性不平等决定了外来移民在追求成功的道路上必须付出额外的努力，并限制了其所可能企及的事业高度。尽管在长期抗争和不懈努力之下，美国的少数族裔在法律层面获得了同白人平等的权利，但根深蒂固的种族主义和不平等依旧深植于美国社会的经济、司法、教育等系统之中，使之在银行、学校、公司及政府机构的资源分配和政策实践中频繁遭遇歧视与差别对待，令他们的美国梦更加遥不可及。研究发现，处于收入分配底层的白人孩子比底层黑人孩子更可能获得更高的收入；在求职时，当非洲裔和亚裔“美国化”自己的简历时——例如，使用听起来像美国白人的名字——他们会得到更多的面试机会。事实上，作为美国各大行业劳动力大军的重要组成部分，美国移民的职业比较集中在医疗保健和服务行业、制造业、住宿及餐饮业、建筑业等非管理行业中，其中农林牧渔行业、废物管理与维修服务、建筑业和住宿餐饮业等行业中，移民工人的占比最高。即使是受过大学教育的外来移民，他们在求职过程中也会面临许多障碍，包括他们在自己国家的教育和工作经验不受承认、面试过程存在文化差异等，最后导致他们很难找到与自己的教育水平相符的工作。2018年，美国劳动力市场上就有大约220万受过大学教育的移民失业或从事包括洗碗、安保和出租车司机等在内的低技能工作，造成人力资源的极大浪费。
外来移民要想在美国跻身中上层阶级，普遍需要几代人的努力：第一代移民往往需要克服语言和文化差异，以低廉的“价格”从事被白人群体所嫌弃的职业，聚居于少数族裔社区以获取安全感，抵抗其他群体的“排斥”；他们的子女虽然成长甚至出生于美国，甚少存在语言上的障碍，仍需要应对成长过程中的身份认同和文化认同危机，并且不得不用超凡的努力来弥补自身在教育资源、社会资本和经济实力等方面同白人同龄人的差距，才可能获得其白人同龄人轻松即可企及的“成功”。而对于占据美国移民中很大一部分比例的非法移民而言，追寻美国梦的过程中更是充满恐惧与不安。在历尽千难万险到达美国之后，碍于身份的非法性和美国日渐严苛的移民政策，他们终日生活于害怕被举报、被遣返的恐惧之中，在工作上更容易受到歧视与差别对待。其子女则可能在某一天突然目睹自己的父母被海关执法人员逮捕，被迫与父母分离，而后独自在美国生活。而对于这些被遣返的非法移民的美国籍子女来说，他们的奋斗之路必然更加艰辛。
1931年，美国作家詹姆斯·亚当斯在《美国史诗》中指出，美国梦不仅仅是获得更多“物质财富”的梦，更是一种“社会秩序之梦”，是“不论男女、不论出生或地位，都能够在这个社会秩序之中达到其与生俱来的最高境界，并因其成就而得到他人认可”之梦。然而，美国移民多年来的亲身体验似乎戳破了这个美梦的虚幻表象，道出了其背后的辛酸苦楚。在美国根深蒂固的种族主义和结构性不平等的社会体制之下，在近年来白人群体的排外和仇外情绪日渐高涨、不同族群内部矛盾日渐紧张的社会氛围之下，外来移民想要追求的“平等与机遇”之梦将更加难圆。
作者俞凤系中国社会科学院美国研究所助理研究员
