混血儿更具备成功的条件?

Americans like answers in black and white, a cultural trait we confirmed last year when the biracial man running for President was routinely called "black".
美国人喜欢在黑色与白色之间寻找答案，这作为一种文化特质，我们认为，当去年那个混血儿男子参加总统竞选的时候就被习惯性地称为“黑色”。

The flattening of Barack Obama's complex racial background shouldn't have been surprising. Many multiracial historical figures in the U.S. have been reduced (or have reduced themselves) to a single aspect of their racial identities: Booker T. Washington, Tina Turner, and Greg Louganis are three examples. This phenomenon isn't entirely pernicious; it is at least partly rooted in our concern that growing up with a fractured identity is hard on kids. The psychologist J.D. Teicher summarized this view in a 1968 paper: "Although the burden of the Negro child is recognized as a heavy one, that of the Negro-White child is seen to be even heavier."
奥巴马复杂的扁平式的种族背景并不令人感到意外，许多多种族混合的历史人物带有种族特征的某方面都有所减少，或自行消失了。如布克.华盛顿、蒂娜透娜和格雷格·洛加尼斯就是三个例子，这一现象并非完全有害，这至少在某种程度上根源于我们的关注：在支离破碎的认同感中成长的孩子是艰难的。心理学家泰阙在1968年的论文中对此观点做出了总结：“虽然负担黑人儿童被认为是沉重的包袱，但抚养黑人与白人的混血儿却被认为是更加沉重的。”

But new research says this old, problematized view of multiracial identity is outdated. In fact, a new paper in the Journal of Social Issues shows that multiracial adolescents who identify proudly as multiracial fare as well as — and, in many cases, better than — kids who identify with a single group, even if that group is considered high-status (like, say, Asians or whites). This finding was surprising because psychologists have argued for years that mixed-race kids will be better adjusted if they pick a single race as their own.
最新研究表明这一年代久远，充满争议的多种族认同观已经过时，实际上，发表在《社会问题》期刊上的一篇新的研究表明，多种族混血的青年如果骄傲地认同自己的混血身份，再多种情况下都优于那些将自己锁定在单一种族的青年，即使该种族地位显赫（比如说，亚裔或者白色人种）该调查结果令人感到吃惊，因为许多年来，心理学家都认为混合种族的孩子们如果选择一个种族作为所属，他们将有更好的适应能力。

The population of multiracial kids in the U.S. has soared from approximately 500,000 in 1970 to more than 6.8 million in 2000, according to Census data quoted in this pdf. In the early years, research on these kids highlighted their difficulties: the disapproval they faced from neighbors and members of their extended families; the sense that they weren't "full" members in any racial community; the insecurity and self-loathing that often resulted from feeling marginalized on all sides. That simple but harsh playground question — "What are you?" — torments many multiracial kids. Psychologists call this a "forced-choice dilemma" that compels children to claim some kind of identity — even if only a half-identity — in return for social acceptance.
在美国，人口普查数据显示，混血儿童的数量从1970年的接近500000人激增至2000年的超过680万人，在早些年，对这些孩子的研究聚焦在他们生活中的困难上：他们所面临的，邻居和扩张的家庭成员不喜欢他们；无论他们在哪个种族社会，他们都不是完全意义上的成员；以及因为被各方边缘化而滋生的不安全感和自我厌恶等等。那个简单而又残酷的问题：“你是什么？”一直折磨着这些多种族混血儿，心理学家将之称为“被迫选择的困境”，这迫使孩子们寻求某种形式上的认同--即使是仅仅有一半被认同，来换取社会对自己的认可。

But the new Journal of Social Issues paper suggests this dilemma has become less burdensome in the age of Tiger Woods and Barack Obama. The paper's authors, a team led by Kevin Binning of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Miguel Unzueta of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, studied 182 multiracial high schoolers in Long Beach, Calif. Binning, Unzueta and their colleagues write that those kids who identified with multiple racial groups reported significantly less psychological stress than those who identified with a single group, whether a "low-status" group like African-Americans or a "high-status" group like whites. The multiracial identifiers were less alienated from peers than monoracial identifiers, and they were no more likely to report having engaged in problem behaviors, such as substance use or persistent school absence.
但是，新的一期《社会问题》杂志认为这一矛盾在泰格.伍兹和奥巴马时代变得不那么繁琐，该论文的作者，斯坦福大学商学院凯文.宾宁和加州大学洛杉矶分校安德森管理学院的米格儿.安左塔所领导的设计小组，研究了在加州长滩的182名混合种族高中生，宾宁、安左塔和他们的同事研究发现，那些将自己认同为混合种族的孩子们的心理压力要明显小于将自己归为某一种族的孩子，无论该种族是像非裔美国人这样“低地位”的还是白种人这种“高地位”的。同时那些混合种族认同者也不像单一认同者那样感到被歧视者疏远。他们也不太可能会因参与有问题的行为而被报道，如滥用药物或者是长期逃学。

The writers theorize that multiracial kids who choose to associate with a single race are troubled by their attempts to "pass," whereas those who choose to give voice to their own uniqueness find pride in that act. "Rather than being 'caught' between two worlds," the authors write, "it might be that individuals who identify with multiple groups are better able to navigate both racially homogeneous and heterogeneous environments than individuals who primarily identify with one racial group." The multiracial kids are able to "place one foot in the majority and one in the minority group, and in this way might be buffered against the negative consequences of feeling tokenized."
作者认为，那些选择联系单一种族的混血儿将被他们选择的“通行证”所困扰，而那些选择表露其特殊性的孩子们则为他们的行为而感到骄傲。作者写到：与其说是被两个种族“束缚”，还不如说是被多种族认同的个体能够更好在同质种族和异质种族的环境游弋自如。那些混血儿能够“一脚踩在多数派一边，另一只脚踩在少数派一边”，并以这种方式缓冲感觉自己被“记号化”带来的消极影响。

In short, multiracial kids seem to create their own definitions for fitting in, and they show more psychological flexibility than those mixed-race kids who feel bound to one choice or another.
总之，多种族混合的孩子们要创建属于他们自己的定义，他们比那些感觉必须选择一方或另一方作为归属的混血儿们表现出更多的灵活性。

Fortunately, all these questions of racial identity are becoming less important, as we inch ever closer to the day when the U.S. has no racial majority. One of these days, after all, we will all be celebrating our multiracial pride.
幸运的是，所有的这些有关种族认同的问题变得越来越不重要，美国消除族歧视已经指日可待，终有一天，我们将举杯欢庆我们多种族大融合的自豪。