我们是亚裔，我们在纽约当警察

In New York City, a Toll Is Newly Felt as Asians Rise in the Police Ranks

我们是亚裔，我们在纽约当警察

Officer Peter Liang is the rookie who fatally shot an unarmed man, in what police officials said was an accident, in the stairwell of an East New York, Brooklyn, housing project.

警官彼得·梁(Peter Liang，音译)在纽约东区布鲁克林一幢居民楼楼梯上开枪打死一名手无寸铁的男性时刚成为警察不久。警方说那是一次意外事故。

Lt. Philip Chan is the veteran officer who suffered a broken nose after being punched during a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge.

副警长菲利普·陈(Philip Chan，音译)是位老警察，在一次布鲁克林大桥上发生游行示威时，他被人打中鼻梁，鼻骨骨折。

And Officer Wenjian Liu was one of the two policemen who were gunned down in their patrol car in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

警官刘文健(Wenjian Liu，音译)则是布鲁克林贝尔福·司徒文森区袭警案两名死难警察之一。

Within the last few weeks, Asian-American officers have been in the middle of a series of wrenching incidents involving the New York Police Department. Their front-line roles are more than just coincidence: They testify to a little-noticed but significant surge in their ranks.

过去几周，纽约接连发生的几起涉及纽约警察的暴力事件都有亚裔警官牵涉在内。他们频繁出现在第一线并不是巧合：他们证明着亚洲族裔在警察队伍中快速但很少被人注意的崛起。

Twenty-five years ago, there were just 200 Asian-American officers in New York City. Now there are more than 2,100 in uniform, or six percent of the total, police statistics show. The percentage of academy graduates, moreover, has jumped to 9 percent, from 4 percent, in the last decade.

警方统计显示，25年前，纽约市只有200名亚裔警官;现在有2100名，占纽约警察总人数的6%。过去10年间，警校毕业生中亚裔所占比例则从4%跃升至9%。

Many arrived in the United States as children and grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan working alongside their parents in restaurants or garment factories. And a good number say they chose law enforcement because of the allure of a steady Civil Service job, a less-heralded career path than the legal, medical and engineering tracks that many immigrant families — especially those coming from wealthier and better-educated backgrounds — aspire to.

他们中很多人是童年移民到美国的，在曼哈顿下东区长大，父母往往在餐馆或者制衣厂工作。很多人说他们选择成为警察，是因为希望得到一份稳定的公务员工作。比起很多移民家庭——特别是来自富裕、有良好教育背景的家庭——所选择的法律、医疗和工程类职业，这条职业道路不那么引人注目。

“Even though the elites get all the attention, this is the group that’s comparable to most other immigrants and migrants that have entered into the American workplace,” said John Kuo Wei Tchen, a New York University historian who is a co-founder of the Museum of Chinese in America. “This is the working man’s opportunity to move up the ladder.”

“社会精英得到了所有的关注，但这个群体比其他多数在美国找到工作的移民，都毫不逊色。这是劳动阶级向上流动的一条途径，”纽约大学历史学家陈国维(John Kuo Wei Tchen)说。他是美国华人博物馆的联合创始人。

Asian-Americans are now assigned to all precincts, not just ethnic enclaves such as Chinatown; Flushing, Queens; and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. But with critical mass has come, invariably, more risk.

纽约各区现在都有亚裔警官，而不只是在少数族裔聚居的地区，比如华埠、皇后区的法拉盛，或布鲁克林的日落公园。但随着亚裔警员规模的壮大，风险也不可避免地增加。

Officer Liu is believed to be the first Chinese-American to be killed in the line of duty in the city. Last year, Officer James Li survived after being shot in the legs on a bus in Brooklyn.

刘文健被认为是本市殉职的第一位华裔警官。去年，警官詹姆斯·李(James Li，音译)在公车上被人开枪击中双腿，但未致命。

About half of the department’s Asian members are Chinese, reflecting the composition of the city’s overall Asian population. But even with their growth, Asians are still underrepresented in the department relative to the 15 percent of city residents who identify themselves as Asians, census figures show. By comparison, 10 percent of the Los Angeles Police Department’s officers and 13 percent of that city’s population are Asian.

纽约市警察局大约一半的亚裔警员是华人，反映了华人在纽约亚裔人口中的占比。但尽管亚裔警官不断增多，他们仍不足以反映亚裔人口在纽约的比重：人口普查显示，15%的纽约居民是亚洲族裔。相比之下，洛杉矶警察局10%的警员为亚洲人，该市人口中13%是亚洲人。

But barriers abounded a generation ago. The department’s 5-foot-8 height requirement for men — overturned by litigation in the 1970s — disqualified an untold number of candidates, especially those who hailed from Hong Kong and southern China, where the men are typically shorter. And few immigrants had law enforcement or military roots; if anything, many, accustomed to repressive governments in China and Taiwan, were suspicious of authority.

但就在一代人之前，亚洲人还面临着众多障碍。纽约警察局曾有一个身高5英尺8英寸的要求——20世纪70年代通过法律诉讼被撤销——让无数人无缘警界，特别是那些通常身材较矮的香港和中国南方移民。移民中很少人来自警察或军人家庭;很多人习惯了中国大陆和台湾的专制政权，对政府抱有怀疑。

One veteran officer in Chinatown, who moved to New York from Guangdong province when he was 10, said that while his parents were open-minded about his career choice, many of their friends disapproved. He remembered his parents’ friends alluding to a common axiom, which roughly translates as “Good sons don’t become public officials.”

华埠的一位老警察10岁时从广东省移民到纽约。他说，他的父母能接受他的职业选择，但父母的很多朋友不认同。他还记得他们的朋友说过一句中国俗语，大意是“好男不当官”。

“Few would become cops,” said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “But now more and more.”

“过去很少有人当警察，现在越来越多了，”他说。因为未被授权公开讲话，他要求匿名。

Other skeptics included the New Yorkers the officers were trying to protect.

其他持怀疑态度的，还包括警官们需要保护的纽约市民。

“Some people refused to be arrested by me, even when I showed them the badge,” said Thomas N. Ong, who retired in 1999 as a detective and is now a private investigator. “They’d say things like, ‘You’re a cop? There are Chinese cops? I didn’t know Chinese were cops.’ ”

“有人不让我逮捕他们，即使我出示了警徽也不行，”1999年作为警方探员退役的托马斯·N·王(Thomas N. Ong，音译)说。“他们会说，你是警察?还有中国警察吗?我不知道中国人也会当警察。”托马斯·N·王现在是私家侦探。

The police had all but adopted a laissez-faire attitude toward Asian-dominated neighborhoods, “thinking that the Asians had their own way of doing things,” said Peter Kwong, a Hunter College professor who has written several books about Chinatown.

纽约警察长期对亚洲人为主的社区采取放任的态度，“认为亚洲人有他们自己的做事方式，”亨特学院的彼得·邝(Peter Kwong，音译)说，他已出版多部著作介绍华埠。

“There’s a long history of frustration,” he said. “When you complained they would say we don’t know the community, we don’t know the language. And since Asians didn’t vote, there was no pressure on the police to be proactive.”

“很长时期，人们无可奈何，”他说。“你如果抱怨，他们会说，我们不了解这个社区，我们语言不通。亚裔人口没有投票权，因此警察也没有积极执法的压力。”

Even today, with the increased Asian presence on the force, language remains a barrier. Chinese officers, particularly older ones, tend to speak Cantonese or Mandarin, and not the Fuzhou dialect that has become more prevalent in working-class areas like Chinatown and Sunset Park. Tensions also persist over neighborhood issues like enforcement of street-vending rules and police vehicles taking up precious parking spaces in Chinatown, which abuts Police Headquarters and court buildings.

就是今天，当更多亚裔美国人成为警察，语言的障碍也仍然存在。华裔警官，特别是年纪大些的，往往会说广东话或者普通话，却不会在华埠和落日公园等地更加普遍的福州方言。各种社区问题也加剧了矛盾，比如街边摊位执法、警察占据华埠宝贵车位(华埠紧邻警署和法院大楼)等问题。

But the department has moved to integrate its ranks far more quickly than, say, the Fire Department, after aggressive recruiting and community-relations efforts. Protests in Chinatown alleging police brutality in the 1970s, as well as intensifying gang violence in the 1980s, accelerated that endeavor, Professor Kwong said.

但是，纽约警方通过积极的招聘项目和社区关系建设，已经改善了警察队伍的构成，进展的速度比消防局快。彼得·邝说，70年代华埠的示威活动和80年代严重的团伙暴力犯罪加快了这种改变的进程。

Another breakthrough came in 1984, when Hugh H. Mo was appointed as deputy police commissioner of trials, and became the highest-ranking person of Asian descent in city government. He gladly posed for a recruiting poster.

另一个突破发生在1984年。当时，莫虎(Hugh H. Mo)出任纽约警察总局副局长兼审判厅长，成为市政府部门官职最高的亚裔美国人。他还为警署的招聘海报欣然拍照。

Years after Mr. Mo, a former prosecutor, left office, he said, “I ran into these parents who came up to me and said, ‘Mr. Mo, my son is a cop, and they say it’s because of you.’ ”

曾做过检察官的莫虎离职时说过：“我遇到一些父母，他们会走过来对我说，莫先生，我的儿子是警察，他们说那是因为你。”

The recruitment effort extended beyond the five boroughs. Robert May, a retired Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officer who is president emeritus of the New Jersey Asian American Law Enforcement Officers Association, said that New York police officers would attend his group’s events, and try to convince members to take the city’s written test. Several did.

招聘的工作不止于纽约的五个区。曾在纽约与新泽西港务局辖区做警察的罗伯特·梅(Rober May，音译)是新泽西亚裔美国人警官协会荣誉主席。他说，纽约警察有时会来参加他们的活动，希望说服协会成员参加纽约市的书面考试。有人真的参加了。

Detective Ong was one of about a dozen officers who founded the Asian Jade Society, a police fraternal group, in 1980. By 1994, when the group held its annual banquet, there were 300 members. A few years ago, the group exceeded 1,000 dues-paying members.

探员托马斯·N·王是1980年创立警察联谊组织亚洲玉协会的十几个人之一。到1994年，协会举办年度宴会的时候，规模已达到300人。几年前，协会已有超过1000名正式会员。

“We envisioned that it was going to grow, but to grow to 1,000 in my lifetime?” Detective Ong said.

“我们预计规模会扩大，但是我这辈子能看到超过1000人?”托马斯·N·王说。

The story of Officer Ben Hoo Wong, who works out of the 109th Precinct in Flushing, is typical.

法拉盛109分局的黄斌豪(Ben Hoo Wong，音译)警官的经历很有代表性。

Mr. Wong, 42, emigrated from Taishan in 1991 with his parents and two older siblings. After working in a garment factory and spending a year at LaGuardia Community College, he became a Postal Service employee — another popular Civil Service option — because his parents wanted him to land a “good, stable government job,” he said. But he also volunteered to be an auxiliary officer, because “since I was a young child, my parents said I needed to help people.”

42岁的黄警官1991年随父母和哥哥姐姐从台山移民纽约。他先是在制衣厂打工，在拉瓜迪亚社区学院读了一年书，然后又在邮政局供职——这也是很多人选择的成为公务员的途径之一——他说，因为父母想让他找到一份“好的、稳定的政府工作”。但他也义务做协警，因为“我父母从小告诉我，要帮助别人”。

After some budget cuts at the post office, Mr. Wong said, he applied to the Police Department and graduated from the academy in 2010 as the oldest new officer, at 38, in his class. Since then, he has routinely handled situations requiring a Chinese-speaking officer. He says he is inspired by how many Asian-Americans have become department supervisors.

邮政局几次削减预算之后，黄斌豪向警察局投了申请，2010年从警校毕业。那年他38岁，成为年龄最大的新警察。从那以后，他经常处理需要中文的情况。他说，很多亚裔美国人已经成为部门主管，他也受到鼓舞。

If Mr. Wong embodies the current generation, then Yishan Tu, a 23-year-old native of Pingtung, in southern Taiwan, may well represent the future.

如果说黄斌豪代表了当前这代人，那么来自台湾屏东的23岁的屠易珊(Yishan Tu，音译)则可能代表着未来。

When Ms. Tu’s family moved to Queens eight years ago, her father, a schoolteacher, could find work only as an assistant to a real estate agent. But, she said, the family scraped by thanks to government and community help, and she attended public schools.

八年前，屠易珊一家移民到皇后区。当时，他的做学校教员的父亲只能找到一份地产中介助理的工作。但她说，政府和社区的帮助让一家人度过了难关，她进入了公立学校。