Brother Lu: Hello! I am very glad to receive your long letter again, thank you and friends for your concern.Every time you write a letter, you always ask a lot of questions, asking how we live in the United States; asking what kind of freedom this country that claims to be the freest in the world has; what is so special about this freedom... These The questions are really not easy to answer, which is why I often bypass these questions every time I reply.However, after living here for a long time, I have learned a lot, and my experience has gradually deepened.After living for a few years, I think, maybe now, I can tell you about the United States in a letter.

Chinese immigrants in the United States can be divided into old and new.The old immigrants came to this land in the last century or earlier to make a living.Most of them came from Fujian and Guangdong, and their historical achievements were railway construction and gold panning.In the future, like immigrants from other countries, I will try my best to use my expertise to do some business "Karl Marx's Economic Determinism"), "Recalling Marx" and so on. On the American continent, Chinese restaurants have sprung up like mushrooms after rain.So far, the descendants of these old immigrants (jokingly called ABC--America Born Chinese, that is, Chinese born in the United States) have been quite integrated into American society. They are not so much Chinese as Americans.

Most of the new immigrants are foreign students and their families from Taiwan and the mainland in recent decades. The immigration trend from Taiwan to the United States was decades earlier than that from the mainland, and it has basically gained a foothold in the past few decades.The youngest are the overseas students who have come from the mainland in the past ten years.Although the times are different, new immigrants, like old immigrants, have countless struggles to put down roots.It is said that there are only a handful of people who feel good about themselves by wandering around Manhattan.For new Chinese immigrants, the most common way is to study.Study a degree or degrees at university until a job can be found.With a steady tech job, that counts as success.There are also some people who have taken short-term visas and have passed the visa period. In this way, they can only find a low-paying job in the Chinese circle.Therefore, as far as the vast majority of new immigrants are concerned, when it comes to food, clothing, housing, transportation, so-called cars and houses, etc., they are roughly no less than ordinary Americans. get on.

In institutions of higher learning, there are also some scholars who specialize in political law or social system. Perhaps it is difficult for them to know how to speak to outsiders in domestic academic circles, because if the audience is not familiar with American history, they have to explain to them the special In theory, it is really hard, and the gain outweighs the loss.Probably because of the above situation, so far, we have rarely seen books that introduce the legal and political conditions of ordinary people in American society to ordinary people in China.So, your question is a natural one: what does freedom in America really feel like?

I dare not say that I have tasted the taste of American freedom.After I came to the United States, I didn't have the threshold to enter a university, especially when I first came here, I had a language barrier, and I couldn't even understand the society I already lived in from books.At the same time, I have been working and living among the most ordinary Americans, most of whom are quite low.So reliable.He applied this extreme sensory principle to the social and political field, saying, I may not be qualified to answer your question theoretically and systematically.But don't let that stop you from reading my letter.As the most ordinary person here, I can talk about what I have seen, heard, read, and thought about the United States from the perspective of an ordinary person.I believe that after reading it, you will be like me, sometimes puzzled, sometimes suddenly enlightened, and finally you may be able to taste something.

It is indeed very hesitant to write about the United States.I remember seeing a reflection written by a person who lived in the United States. He said that when he first arrived in the United States, he seemed to have a lot to write about and a lot of experience, but the longer he stayed, the more he felt "unfathomable". Instead, I don't know how to write.Because as soon as you go deeper, you will see that whether it is positive or negative, the reality of the United States is much more complicated than the United States in the eyes of tourists who have been sightseeing for two months.

Another reason for hesitation is that China and the United States are two countries with very different backgrounds, and the misunderstanding and estrangement between them is actually very deep.After arriving in the United States, we discovered how little Americans understand China, especially the ordinary American people. Their enthusiasm for learning about China is far less than the Chinese people's curiosity about the United States.However, at the same time, we also found that Chinese people, including us, feel that they have learned about the United States through "all-round" information channels in their own country, and they should have a roughly indistinguishable concept of the United States.When I ran over to see it, it turned out that it was not the same thing at all!

Let me give a simple example.In the Spring Festival Gala of the past two years, there was a very popular sketch in which a Chinese father made an overseas phone call to the son of a foreign student in the United States.The father said loudly to his son on the phone that our country will be prosperous and strong in the future, let them Americans come and wash the dishes for us!Voice-machine vision, natural language understanding, robotics, expert systems, etc.At present, his master, the excited audience below gave out a burst of thunderous applause.This scene conveys the message that there are already quite a few "wanderers" studying in the United States in mainland China. It is very common for them to work in restaurants. Many of them complain to their hometowns about being treated unfairly in restaurants. They feel sorry for their sons. Parents and their relatives who are aggrieved against Americans have formed a certain amount of public opinion in China.

I don't know how this "son" feels on the other end of the phone.I talked about this program with some Chinese students who, like me, watched the video in the United States.Mentioning this plot, they all shook their heads helplessly, with a look of "do not know".Is it real?You can tell it's true.Almost all the Chinese students I have met have had a very long experience working in restaurants. Almost everyone has encountered a few harsh restaurant owners who pay low wages, don’t give good looks, and even don’t respect employees at all. personality.This made the college graduates who were regarded as "outstanding ones" in the mainland seriously unbalanced.Some of them always wrote home to complain, and there was nothing wrong with that.But why do the international students here shake their heads when they see it?Because this is happening in America, but it's not really America.Because this is a very special phenomenon in the Chinese American society.

In fact, almost all Chinese international students spent their hardest days in Chinese restaurants when they first arrived. The restaurant owners are also Chinese. This is a Chinese society.This society can sometimes be said to be very closed. It not only has its own language, but also its own normative rules and moral standards.The working environment in American restaurants, including employers' attitudes towards employees, is often fundamentally different from Chinese restaurants.The reason why Chinese students studying abroad generally do not enter American restaurants is because basically they cannot enter.There are two reasons. One is that the English is not good enough to adapt to the work when they first came. The more important reason is that most of the international students do not have work permits, and working part-time is illegal, and American restaurant owners will not accept it.

In principle, when the United States accepts foreign students, it requires the other party to have financial resources to pay their own tuition and living expenses.It can be the sponsorship of relatives and friends.The purpose is to protect the right of citizens of their own country to work.Foreign students have no source of income, so they are bound to work to maintain their living and pay high tuition fees, which creates a situation of competing with American citizens for jobs.A country with a large number of unemployed people is a class dictatorship of the proletariat. This dictatorship is to eliminate all class differences. Of course, this situation is not expected. This is why financial guarantees are required for obtaining student visas.No matter from which point of view, it cannot be said to be unreasonable. However, most of the financial guarantees for Chinese students studying abroad are "found" in various ways. When many people obtain the "guarantee", they make it clear to the other party that this is a "nominal guarantee", that is to say, this "guarantee" "It is only used to obtain a visa, and after that, I will "find my own way".This "method" can only be to work illegally and illegally enter the job market.Perhaps not absolutely, even relatively speaking, American restaurant owners are generally more law-abiding and will not accept such illegal employees, while Chinese restaurant owners are generally willing to take the risk of breaking the law and accept it.They are willing to do this for the simple reason that it is cheaper to hire illegal workers and they are at their beck and call.Thus, a supply and demand relationship is formed.Of course there are good bosses, but under the pressure of competition, harsh Chinese bosses abound.It is not only a large number of Chinese students who have been wronged, but also those who come to visit relatives to earn some money. The bottom line is still illegal immigrants, including some illegal immigrants of non-Chinese origin.In June of this year, the Immigration Service found a 13-year-old Mexican boy working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, in a Chinese restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi, for a daily wage of only $21, which was less than The minimum wage set by the U.S. government.In this situation, the Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans who were originally working legally here are the first to be affected, because these job opportunities originally belonged to them, and other Americans generally do not look for jobs in Chinese restaurants.Secondly, ordinary Americans may suffer losses, because Chinese-Americans who lost their original jobs can receive some social welfare funds, and this money is the taxes paid by working Americans. Therefore, what do you tell your son who listens to "overseas phone calls" to his father?This "son" must know that ordinary Americans don't understand the account of the "Chinese society". If they also watch this program, they must not understand what it means.They don't know the grievances or the many legal and illegal "know-how" that foreign students must go through if they want to stay in this country.A "son" in the United States, no matter how sympathetic his experience is, and no matter how justifiable his various actions are, but as a "father", he wants to blame the Americans in the non-Chinese society, "son "I could only smile wryly. What's more, most of "son"'s American classmates are also "washing the dishes". It is only natural for them to "wash the dishes" to earn tuition fees to support themselves.Young people in the United States generally have working experience very early. When they are very young, the suppression of the working class is no longer economic, but turned to ideology, and they try to do odd jobs.Parents in the United States sometimes let their children start with housework in order to exercise their ability to "work" from an early age, letting them contract some housework and earn some "small wages".When I first arrived in the United States, I didn't have a lawnmower. The landlord introduced a temporary worker who mowed the lawn.After a while, I saw a man carrying a lawn mower in a small truck, and a thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy jumped out of the truck.The lawn mower was unloaded and the pickup truck drove off.It was the boy who stayed and worked.Under the hot July sun, my face was flushed and I earned a little pocket money.By the age of sixteen or seventeen, except for a few wealthy children, the average young American has entered a state of self-reliance or semi-self-reliance.Do everything, very hard-working.My friend Bill was completely independent at seventeen. A large number of fast food restaurants in the United States need countless employees, and their employees are all temporary and mobile.Almost all high school graduates and college students, fast food restaurants are the most common starting point for young Americans to work.Even after graduating from university or even after graduating from graduate school, they all have a period of varying lengths to find a suitable job. During this period, "washing the dishes" is often one of their temporary solutions to survival problems.There are also a large number of American youths who choose a free life after graduating from college.They don't plan to find a stable job at all, do a coolie for a while, and then have a good time, and have been "participating" for decades.It's a choice they make about their lifestyle. When I was in China, I read the introduction and knew that American young people are relatively independent, but I was still surprised to live with these independent young people.What impresses me the most is their free and relaxed attitude. "Washing the dishes" means "washing the dishes", and "carrying the big bag" means "carrying the big bag". American youths will not feel that their fate is unfair, complain about the world or feel sorry for themselves when they feel that they have "been inferior".For a temporary job, they only care about the level of wages, and they don't have any thought of high or low.Maybe at noon, he serves other people's plates and collects tips from others. At night, when he sits in the bar, he is served by others and tipped by others.They simply don't realize the difference here.If you tell them now that there are restaurants with high wages in China, they will definitely tell everyone and meet up, and they will definitely not feel that they have "lost their jobs". When discussing the "sense of distance" between the two countries, I tried very, very hard to explain this skit and its richness to my American friend Laura.Here are the survival issues of Chinese students studying in the United States, immigration issues, and various special situations in the Chinese American society. People's different understandings are also mixed with complex background culture.She was dumbfounded.Things that many Chinese people take for granted and take for granted are inconceivable to her. I mention such an example just to illustrate that the distance of journey also creates the distance of understanding, which is true for both parties.Standing in the midst of misunderstanding and estrangement, no matter which party wants to tell the story of the other party, it is difficult.True stories can also create untrue impressions.The "son" who wrote a letter to "father" and introduced "the situation in the United States" for a long time must have not expected to draw such a conclusion from "father" on the phone.Besides, your questions are all "big questions". If you answer them well, you will have a better understanding of the United States. If you don't answer them well, you will only deepen your misunderstanding.So, I have to take a deep breath and write you very carefully. Perhaps, the first thing I should emphasize is that the United States is a very special country. It is difficult to find the same environment in the world with such fluid changes. This is the major premise of any American story. In the United States, the place that best embodies this particularity is New York.When we are in China, we often hear that Shanghai is compared to an international metropolis like New York. In a sense, the two cities do have similarities.The intellectuals were leading the revolution when we first went to New York.What he yearned for was a man who didn't have a car and was still very unskilled in driving.I followed the road map very nervously, but still took the wrong tunnel, and broke into the chaos of Manhattan as soon as I came out.It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve again, the cars were not splitting lanes, and there was a sound of car horns in my ears.This is traffic chaos that you don't see in most parts of the US.At that time, the reason why we were able to stabilize God immediately was because of the great feeling of the whole environment in that area, which was very similar to the Shanghai we are familiar with. But when it comes to the internationalization of international metropolises, neither Shanghai nor Beijing can match New York.On the New York subway, you often can't hear English, but you can probably hear any language in the world.As far back as 1673, more than 300 years ago, there were only 8,000 residents in this city, and there were already 18 languages.Now, the city even has communities of 170 different nationalities.Immigrants from all countries live together like this, and they are grandiose.I was driving to New York last year, and the car broke down on the busiest street during the heaviest traffic hour, and a Jewish tow truck took me to a garage made up entirely of Israeli immigrants, and they exchanged Both spoke only old Yiddish. Greengrocers in uptown New York are owned by quiet, hard-working Asians.At first, I always thought they were of Chinese descent, and they would involuntarily speak Chinese while handing out the dishes.Later, I found out that they couldn't understand. They were immigrants from North Korea.It is said that they know that it is not easy to make a living in a strange place, so they are very "grouped".Come to a new immigrant, the original Korean shopkeepers will raise funds to set up a new shop, hand it over to the new compatriots to operate, and then let him earn money and pay it back slowly, step by step, gradually control This job.It is said that the vegetable and fruit shop was the first way for Italian immigrants to make a living, but they came early and had a better way out, so they gave up this site. In New York, you will gradually learn to recognize the costumes of various races all over the world, and learn to identify which region and country they come from from various face shapes and characteristics. The problem is, this is different from the "inferior" encountered in Beijing and Shanghai. nation” to promote social progress.Art is also the manifestation of the will to power, where they are all "foreign guests" from all over the world.In New York, no matter how different they are, they call themselves "Americans."If you don't think of them as orthodox Americans, then there are no "Americans" in America. For Chinese Americans living in New York or San Francisco, don't say that some people don't speak English all their lives, and they can even speak only one dialect of China.In a vegetable shop in San Francisco, I saw with my own eyes that the shopkeeper ignored an American woman because she asked the price in English, and also ignored us because we couldn't speak Cantonese. In New York, of course, the most conspicuous minority is the African-Americans. Regardless of the different languages ​​spoken by the new immigrants from different countries in Africa, it is the blacks who have lived here for more than a dozen generations. The unique "black English", don't say that newcomers like us can't understand it, even "authentic Americans" can't understand it too fast. But who is an "authentic American"?We often talk about "white people", but after a long wait, you discover "The Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Phenomenology" and so on. , They have all "immigrated" from countries with completely different cultural backgrounds one after another for hundreds of years. Some families came earlier, some even came later than us, and their English is worse than ours. , and some people are constantly "moving" over.These "Americans" who immigrated from Germany, England, Poland, France, Russia, Persia, Italy, Spain and other completely irrelevant places at different times, we insist on taking them as the same thing, but those Newcomers, they didn't agree with each other at all.It's like they never figured out that we have nothing to do with the Japanese, the Laotians, or the Vietnamese.However, after arriving here, after a few years, after becoming a U.S. citizen, they all became "Americans". And, it's an ongoing process.The older generation of immigrants stabilized and intermarried with each other, and the new generation was born, sandwiched between the culture of the mother country of the parents and the "American culture". Italian-speaking, I also met little Chinese-Americans who were forced by their parents to go to a Chinese school, but said to their parents "you Chinese".Then they had their next generation... At this time, new immigrants were still pouring in. In New York, there is a famous tourist attraction called Ellis Island, which used to be the first stop for immigrants from all over the world to enter the United States.Now, there is an immigration museum.When I went there to visit, I had only been in the United States for a year, but standing in that hall, you felt that you should be equal to all Americans.In fact, making you feel this way is the intention of establishing this museum.There, I saw those people who looked very "American" looking up their family's immigration history based on their surnames with the same interest through the computer.At this time, you will feel that there is no essential difference between you and them only when you set foot on this land.In the lobby, there's a very cleverly designed exhibit, from one angle it's a giant American flag, from another it's hundreds of photographs of immigrants from all over the world.It tells you that the sum of these people is the United States. The racial problem in the United States is world-renowned.However, if you want to understand it only as a "black and white problem", it seems too simple.The foreigners who flock in like a tide every year will change from "temporary foreigners" to "permanent residents" in a short time In a few years, once you are naturalized, you will become an "American" of a certain ethnicity.It has become a variety of "minorities" in the United States.Americans are very curious when they hear that I can always clearly say "there are 56 ethnic groups in China".Because none of them can say how many "nations" there are in the United States.Moreover, all ethnic groups in China, whether they are the "majority" Han or "minorities", are basically the "indigenous peoples" of this land.In the United States, those early immigrants have intermarried and mixed with other races for several generations, so that they do not know where they came from, so they only call themselves Americans and are no longer considered "minorities".And regardless of the "majority nationalities" or "minority nationalities", they are all foreigners.No one evolved from the ape-men in America.Now generally speaking, there are broad categories based on visible and obvious distinctions, for example, African-American, Asian-American, Latino-American, and so on.However, as I have already said, they do not admit it at all, and still want to separate Chinese, Japanese... and so on. The problem of racial segregation in the United States has long been resolved legally.Under normal circumstances, there are no more sharp ethnic conflicts.People's ideas have also changed greatly, but racial issues have also become intricate, far from being limited to blacks and whites.For example, the famous black riots in Los Angeles a few years ago were caused by several white police officers beating a black man illegally while chasing them.But, during the riots, you know who owned the stores that were the main targets of looting and vandalism for black people?It's an Asian store.Especially the shops of the Koreans suffered the heaviest losses, which made the white people baffled.Some TV reporters went to interview many blacks and found that they had a lot of resentment against Asians. One of the black pastors told reporters that these Asians came from nowhere to take our jobs.A Chinese friend of mine came over and said angrily, this is the United States, and they are all immigrants, and they are different from other places.Just mix it up.The riot turned out to be a symbol of a new development in racial issues, characterized by "minority against minority"! Many Chinese Americans have actually joined the ranks of "racial discrimination" long ago.In many Chinese circles, the discrimination against black people is very open. Even in Chinese articles in the United States, there have been insulting names for black people. This is very unusual in the United States. The reason why it did not cause any disturbance is because It's just that neither blacks nor whites read Chinese newspapers.The history of a large number of Chinese immigrants is not long. Chinese Americans are generally complacent about being able to obtain a middle-class life and status in a short period of time, but for the blacks who have been here for hundreds of years, they see that many of them are still Low status, very contemptuous.However, few of them realize that the overall contribution of blacks to American culture is beyond the reach of Chinese. This year, a Chinese-language newspaper attracted a letter of protest from the National Director of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Calling this Polish-born Catholic landlord a "Jewish landlord" can be transformed into each other.See "Interaction" in "Physics". , "Jewish" here is only used as an adjective like petty and unreasonable.In another article with confusing logic, a Chinese author first tried to prove that Christ was killed by the Jews, and then put forward a very "shocking" point of view, saying that it was the Holocaust of the Jewish people by the Nazis in World War II. The Jews "make all the money in the world"!This time, I didn't expect that Jews would also read Chinese newspapers, so these letters of protest were elicited.I believe the editors will be more careful in the future.However, this has not solved the deep-rooted racial discrimination and prejudice among a considerable number of Chinese Americans. In fact, some Chinese look down on blacks, often just because blacks are poorer than them; they hate Jews, often just because they are more accomplished than them.In America, the younger generation is distinctly different from the older generation. In the older generation of Americans, I have met several well-meaning old white men who told me to ignore black people and call them bad.However, in the vast majority of young people, you will feel the effect of American education after the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s. At least, I have asked every white American friend of mine, what do you think of black people?What do you think of the Jews?Mike and Bill's answer is the most concise, almost a generalization and summary of various answers: I don't judge a person's value by skin color and race.But among Chinese immigrants, there are few such rational thinking on this issue. Each nation brings to America their strengths and their unique weaknesses.For the Chinese Americans we are familiar with, the proportion of top students of Chinese descent in schools is far greater than their proportion in the US population.At UCLA, where 40 percent of first-year students are Asian, the advantages are clear.In America, almost everyone knows this.However, their shortcomings are sometimes only understood by the Chinese themselves, and ordinary Americans are not clear about them.For example, in the United States, any newspaper vending machine is an iron zygote.All the newspapers are inside.Put a coin to open them all, take one and then close it.When I bought a newspaper for the first time, I put coins in it, and when I opened the cover, I was shocked to find all the newspapers in front of me.Based on my experience in China, I thought, how can such a design work? Isn't it just three clicks and two clicks?However, this is designed according to the national conditions of the United States. Americans will not toss a coin and get two newspapers.However, I soon discovered an exception. The Chinese restaurant in the Chinese settlement, and the entrance of the Chinese store, is a specially designed newspaper vending machine, and one coin can only get one newspaper. In the Chinese newspapers in the United States, people from all over the United States have sparked discussions on this seemingly simple "newspaper issue". One of the Chinese told how in half an hour, he watched his compatriots "free" A pile of newspapers.The extension of this simple question is the emergence of some unique phenomena in Chinese society.For example, "Morality and Religion", "Problems of Historical Philosophy", "On Socialism", "Historical Materialism", many Chinese restaurants refuse to accept checks from Chinese.A Chinese wrote an article saying that he did not understand that many Chinese restaurants did not accept checks. During the inquiry, the boss told him: To be honest, we accept checks from "Americans".He was even more puzzled as to how this kind of "racial discrimination" that Chinese people discriminated against Chinese people could occur.It wasn't until one day that I wanted to sell my computer and received a fake check of more than 800 US dollars from a Chinese student, that I "suddenly realized". In the United States, there are not only very strict laws prohibiting racial discrimination, but even the "Affirmative Action Act" to protect the interests of ethnic minorities.If such a situation happened in an ordinary American restaurant, the customer would have sued the court long ago, and the fine would be fined out of the original, because this is illegal.But in the Chinese society, those who are rejected checks just shake their heads and forget it.What is popular here is the concept of Chinese people. Firstly, the boss can do nothing about it, and then think about throwing the face of the Chinese in the American court. Everyone is disgraceful.I really can't see it, that is, calling on everyone to "respect themselves" in Chinese newspapers.In the United States, there are small societies like the "Chinese society" for every race. Americans outside of this "small society" don't know at all what kind of special things there are besides the languages ​​that are different from English. concepts and rules.Not long ago, a descendant of Hmong immigrants from Southeast Asia, a little Hmong girl of American nationality, accused her father of sexual abuse.Her father actually swore in the New York court that he would kill chickens and drink their blood in public in accordance with the Miao family's custom to prove his innocence.As a result, when the jury still found him guilty, it is said that the Hmong community in New York was shocked. They said that this kind of thing never went to court, and they used to "solve it internally" themselves.Having said that, it is the turn of American society to be "shocked". In fact, immigrants of all races have brought their own contributions and problems to the United States, and their contributions are sometimes very prominent. For example, blacks, who account for about 12 percent of the US population, are usually considered to be relatively poor. Those with a relatively low overall cultural level, and even many ethnic minorities whose population ratio is much smaller than them, look down on them.But, in fact, their jazz, rock and roll, as well as their dance and sports talents, have profoundly influenced the entire American culture for a long time, and their significance far exceeds the scope of literature and entertainment.Only here will you realize how powerful these music and dances are. It has almost completely changed the face of a generation of Americans. You can even say that it has changed the spiritual outlook of the entire United States.Without African culture, there would be no American culture today.Today, there is no American who is not influenced by African culture.This should be said to be the overall contribution of African Americans to American culture.The contribution of immigrants in all aspects can be said to be a necessary prerequisite for the United States to be strong and continue to be strong. However, the problem of immigration is sometimes very serious.For example, complex immigration complicates America's crime problems, especially organized crime.No matter which country people are, they will be proud of the achievements of their "wanderers" in the United States. Mill (John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873) British positivism philosophy, such as which one has made outstanding contributions, which one has won the Nobel Prize, It's natural to talk about everything.However, most people rarely think of the other side.Especially when people criticize the crime rate in the United States, they seldom consider the surging immigration background in the United States, because they have no experience of living in such a large-flowing background in the United States, let alone think that their compatriots will respond to these problems. What a big role to play.For example, people in Asian countries, few people would think that Asian gangs have become rising stars in the United States. This year, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has listed Asian gangs as the second priority target after the Italian Mafia.When they come to the United States, they become part of the crime problem in the United States.This is despite the fact that many criminal gang members still hold passports from their home countries and are not US citizens or even legal residents of the US.The two poles of the immigration issue make it impossible to argue whether you are right or wrong in the United States. Before coming here, we were very familiar with the saying that the United States is a melting pot of all nations in the world, but we never put ourselves in the shoes of others and thought about how to live in such a melting pot.Here, some Americans say that this is not a "melting pot", but a "vegetable salad pot", which has been stirred for a long time, and the green vegetables are still green vegetables, and the radishes are still radishes.No matter whether it is a "melting pot" or a "vegetable salad pot", if you are really in it, you can't help but sigh the strange feeling from time to time.We are often puzzled: how does the United States, where tens of thousands of legal and illegal immigrants enter the country every day, bring order to the disorder caused by immigrants from all over the world? In 1994 alone, 500,000 legal immigrants were naturalized in the United States, 54,000 foreigners were granted political asylum in the United States for various reasons, 1.1 million people were arrested by the Immigration Bureau, and 46,000 people were arrested. A criminal investigation resulted in the deportation of 44,000 illegal immigrants.移民局认为他们取得证据有权监禁的非法移民达五十万人，(实际因拘留所床位不够只拘留了六分之一)，还有不计其数的非法移民避开了移民局的视线，用各种方式悄然溜过国境，消失在本来就由各种肤色，眼色，发色组成，操着各种语言的“美国人”之中。根据美国人口调查局的报告，在去年的人口调查中发现，美国每十一个人中就有一名是出生在外国的第一代移民。 你信中好几次向我们介绍国内“民工潮”的兴起和因此带来的种种问题，我想，这对于你理解美国的“移民潮”可能有点帮助。而后者，已经日日不断，潮潮不息地进行了近五百年。 刚来美国时，我们没有自己的洗衣机，因此，常去投币洗衣铺洗衣服。那里黑人很多。我们经常一边等着，一边欣赏黑人儿童特殊的发形，十分感慨。你知道，最早的非洲移民被作为奴隶贩卖到美洲已经有四百多年的历史，那本名为“根”的小说也早已举世闻名。我和一个有着典型非洲姓名的黑人聊过，他就是奴隶的后代，他告诉我，对于绝大多数的奴隶后代来说，寻根是根本不可能的。这完全可以想像，十几代一过，他们早早地就成了美国人。但是，我又要说到他们的发形。虽然一定有变化，但是，可以断言这是他们非洲文化传统的一部分。在这里，只有他们有这样的发形。那样奇特多姿，富有想象力。这只是文化耐力的一个小小例证。 最叫我吃惊的是，在今天交通发达，完全不存在穷乡僻壤的美国，居然还有一种称为“阿米绪”的移民，他们说一种类似德语的语言，完全拒绝现代生活，使用传统农具，一代一代在美国过着十八世纪的“欧洲乡村生活”。 我想说的是，各国的移民所保持的不仅是不同的文化，在一定程度上也保持着他们各自的政治见解以及政治偏见，宗教信仰乃至宗教狂热，一些新移民甚至保持着他们的母国，或者说前祖国，的遗爱或宿怨。这一切，当然给移民本身，尤其是新移民带来巨大的困惑。 就华裔移民来说，美国的中文报纸就针锋相对地讨论过有关的种种命题。从要不要再让下一代学中文，直到移民如何定位和文化认同，甚至爱国是爱哪一国等等(华裔美国人除了爱中国还是爱美国这样的问题，还有两岸三地此类复杂情况)。不论是哪一种观点，都表达了移民的心理失衡。即使是反对子女学中文的，也绝不是连“多一种外语就多一种谋生技能”这样的简单道理都不明白，更不必上纲上线到是否爱国的高度，这只不过反映了作者痛感于第一代移民“猪八戒照镜子，里外不是人”的尴尬地位。 移民们的各自母国，常常热情地发出呼唤，呼吁他们“离乡不离土”，“把根留下”，一个国家，能够念念不忘它的“游子”，当然令人感动。但是，对于那些已经“游”得很远，以至于加入了新的居住地国籍的移民们，面对母国的频频呼唤，同时又面临走进陌生新大陆的诸多困难，往往前顾后盼，徒生烦恼，总是要莫名其妙地问出“我是谁”的问题来。移民们发泄他们的困惑是很自然的，但是，很少有人写文章谈一谈：什么是美国的困惑？ 记得在中国时，看过一个叫“鹰冠庄园”的美国电视连续剧，里面有这么一个情节：一个美国女孩子和一个新移民恋爱了，一切顺顺当当之际，那位来自第三世界的小伙子却神情激动地宣称，他的母国发生了某一变化，他要舍弃一切回去参加自己民族的一场革命。 这不仅仅是那个正在恋爱中的美国女孩子的困惑，这也是美国的困惑。他的居民乃至于公民是如此的“国际化”，你吃不准他们什么时候属于你，什么时候又突然不属于你。这里汇集了全世界最奇异和最纷杂的思想，最聪明和最零乱的思路，最清楚和最不可理愈的逻辑，最惊人和最怪诞的行为……，这一切原本应属于世界的各个角落，可是有一天他进入了你的国境，成了你的一员，他所附带的一切你就不能拒绝。全世界的问题都成了你的问题，全世界的麻烦也成了你的麻烦。 如果那些移民在想为自己母国有所行动的时候，都象那个小伙子一样回去“闹革命”倒也罢了。事实上，他们常常就地行动。所以美国常常发生些令人费解的故事。例如去年的中华人民共和国国庆，对这个国家和政府持有两种不同政见的人，就在纽约街头发生冲突。相信他们中的大多数已是美国合法居民，甚至有一些已是美国公民。但是，这并不影响双方在美国的国土上为另一个国家的国庆问题发生冲突，以至需要美国的警察出来维持秩序。 我还没有回答你的问题，却先给你写了那么一大段题外话，正是想让从来没有到过美国的你，能够理解我前面说的那句话：美国实在是一个很特殊的国家。如果隐去这个大背景，我就可能讲不清我的美国故事。 好了，今天就先写到这儿，下封信开始，我试试看能不能回答你的问题，写写什么是美国的自由。 wish it is good! Linda