混血難童與跨國養女：亞美「回歸」敘事裡的帝國親密

Mix-raced Refugees and Transnational Adoptees: The Imperial Intimacy in Asian American Return Narratives

這篇文章聚焦在越南難童與韓國養女的「回歸」敘事，以指出跨國親密關係的重組與替置乃是九○後亞美文學的重要關切。回家與尋母的故事不只突顯亞美主體想像家國的困境，同時也指向對於帝國歷史與亞洲現代性的批判與反省。借鏡美國西語裔學者對於「邊境」經驗與「混血」意識的討論，我試圖以「邊境混血」的概念來承接與翻譯「跨國性」，一方面藉以鬆動跨國主義的階級預設，另一方面強調親密關係之於跨國想像與實踐的重要性。在這裡，跨國性不僅指涉了資本主義的文化邏輯以及既有的跨國網路和行動，它更確切地指向親密關係的跨國破壞與生產。透過這樣的跨文化轉譯，我們可以建立起「帝國親密」這個批判概念來理解難童與養女的跨國經驗，並將亞美文學的論述焦點從文化認同與「肯認美國」轉向「亞／美關係」的批判性重構。我的基本論點是：亞美文學的「亞洲轉向」不該被看作是一種文明主義式的亞洲回歸、認同與擁抱。相反的，我們應該批判地將亞美文學的亞洲再現視為反省亞美社群與亞洲關係的契機與場域。在越南難童與韓國養女的回歸敘事裡，我們可以看見「回歸敘事」裡的帝國親密如何承載著愛恨交織的「亞／美關係」，以及邊境混血的批判意識如何突顯親密關係的地緣政治與種族邊界。更重要的，難童與養女苦澀卻幸運的跨國生命，不僅幫助我們掌握種族歧視與國族羞恥的連結，演繹「移民／異民、遺民／憶民」的辯證思考，它更敦促我們重新思索家國的意義，進而深入了解移民與帝國在亞洲現代性裡的關連。

This article focuses on the return narratives of refugees and adoptees in Asian American writing. It argues that intimacies across borders and races have been a critical concern in contemporary Asian American writing and the stories of “return” bespeak the difficulty of imagining home in the intersections of U.S. imperialism and Asian modernity. In this paper, I borrow the ideas of la frontera and mestiza from Chicano studies to describe the experience of refugees and adoptees and to establish “imperial intimacy” as a critical category to examine and recast such banal terms as transnationality and transnationalism which have thus far centered on middle-class immigrants. The transnational biographies of refugees and adoptees allow us to better understand the immigrant, dialectically, not only as an alienated and displaced subject, but also as a subject of memory. In doing so, Asian American discourse can begin to reflect critically on the “Asian/Asian American relations” as the ground on which the notion of home is complexly articulated with and against empire and modernity, as Asian American literature travels to other destinations and reach other audiences.