The first time I was aware of my Asianness was when I asked my mother why I wasn’t blond. I was 5, and one of only a handful of Asian-Americans living in a predominantly white suburb in Michigan. Of course, my story is not unique — it’s an experience that’s probably shared by most American-born Asians as we shake off our perceived otherness and strive to prove our Americanness. There’s a term for it: “perpetual foreigner.”
第一次意识到自己的亚裔特征，是我问母亲为什么我的头发不是金黄色的时候。我那时五岁，是生活在密歇根州一个以白人为主的郊区的少许亚裔美国人之一。当然，我的故事并不罕见。在摆脱我们察觉到的其他特征，努力证明自己的美国特征时，可能大部分在美国出生的亚裔都有这种经历。对此有一个说法，叫“永远的外国人”。
“We’re the group that’s always told to go back where we came from, and it’s partly because we have a very strong immigrant population, so we all get bundled in regardless of whether we’re fourth generation or first — to everyone, you look like a foreigner,” said Erin Khue Ninh, associate professor of Asian-American studies at UC Santa Barbara.
“我们这个群体永远都会有人要我们从哪儿来回哪儿去，这部分是因为我们的移民规模非常庞大，所以不管是第四代还是第一代，我们所有人都被捆绑在一起——所有人看你都像个外国人，”加州大学圣芭芭拉分校(UC Santa Barbara)研究亚裔美国人的副教授宁乔艾玲(Erin Khue Ninh)说。
If that’s the case, the most obvious and quickest way to subscribe to Western ideals of beauty is to lighten your hair. For Liz Rim, a stylist at the IGK Salon in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan who began processing her strands five years ago, blond hair was her way of fitting in.
如果是这样的话，要表达对西方理想的认同，最明显且快捷的办法就是把发色变浅。对于曼哈顿切尔西地区IGK Salon的发型师丽兹·任(Liz Rim)来说，把头发变成金黄色就是她融入的方式。她五年前开始处理自己的头发。
“I grew up in Georgia where everyone was blond haired and blue eyed, and I always had this image of myself as an Asian Barbie,” Ms. Rim said. “Now it’s crazy because one-third of the Asians I see in New York or Los Angeles are blond.”
“我在乔治亚州长大，那里所有人都是金发碧眼，我永远都是亚裔芭比娃娃的形象，”任说。“现在太疯狂了，因为我在纽约或洛杉矶看到的亚裔中三分之一是金发。”
While Japanese celebrities have been changing their hair color as far back as the 1960s to emulate manga and anime characters, it was only a couple of years ago, on the heels of the ombré trend, that salons in this country began to see a spike in Asian clients looking to go full platinum.
尽管早在60年代，日本名人就为了模仿动漫人物而改变发色，但直到几年前渐层染发火起来后，美国说英语的美发店才迎来想把头发全部染成银白色的亚裔客户的剧增。
Ritsuko Hotaka, English speaker, a colorist at Hair Kuwayama in the East Village, said that nearly 20 percent of her clients are asking to go blond. Kelly Su, the founder of Sonder Hair Studio in NoLIta, reported that of all her Asian customers, about 50 percent are going lighter. (Both salons have a largely Asian client base.)
东村Hair Kuwayama的染发师保高律子(Ritsuko Hotaka，音)说，她的顾客中近20%要求染成金色。诺利塔Sonder Hair Studio的创始人凯莉·苏(Kelly Su)反映，在她所有的亚裔顾客中，大约50%的人会选择更浅的颜色。(两家美发店的顾客群体都以亚裔为主。)
“It has so much to do with the number of Asian-American bloggers who are becoming increasingly visible,” said Greta Lee, an actress who went platinum for the second half of last year. “There’s an army of Asians who are rising in the fashion world.”
“这与日益出名的亚裔美国博主的数量有很大关系，”去年下半年把头发染成银白色的女演员格蕾塔·李(Greta Lee)说，“有一大批亚裔正在时尚界崛起。”
Once a so-called editorial look adopted by a select few, like the popular Korean-American model Soo Joo Park, who found fame with her trademark ultralight locks, the aesthetic has paved the way for celebrities, street-style stars and more to follow suit. That includes the model and blogger Irene Kim, the designer Yoon Anh and the social-media influencers Vanessa Hong, Tina Leung and Margaret Zhang.
有少数一些人曾采用所谓的时尚大片造型，比如热门韩裔美国模特朴秀珠(Soo Joo Park)，她以标志性的超亮发型闻名，这种审美引发名人和街头时尚明星纷纷效仿。其中包括模特兼博主艾琳·金(Irene Kim)、设计师安尹(Yoon Anh，音)和社交媒体影响力人物瓦妮莎·洪(Vanessa Hong)、梁伊妮(Tina Leung)和章凝(Margaret Zhang)。
Not all of them went blond with the sole desire of mirroring Western beauty ideals. Ms. Hong was going through a major moment in her life and wanted a drastic change. Ms. Leung, after seven years with a Skrillex side shave, felt as if she was missing an edge.
染成金发不一定都是为了模仿西方美。瓦妮莎·洪正在经历人生中的一个重要时刻，她想要一个巨大的改变。梁伊妮在留了七年Skrillex式半边剃头发型后，觉得自己好像缺点与众不同的东西。
“I had been seeing all these amazing Asian girls with blond hair, and I’m a sucker for advertisement,” she said, laughing. “If I see something over and over again, I kind of want it.”
“我一直看着这些迷人的亚裔女孩留着金发，我很容易受到广告的影响，”她大笑着说，“如果我一次又一次地看到某样东西，我就会有点想要它。”
This demand can be attributed in part to the 2014 invention of Olaplex, an active ingredient added to bleach to repair breakage from chemical damage, making the process of lifting 10 levels of pigment a more achievable feat. And 18 months ago, when the West Village salon Whittemore House introduced its Hair Paint formula that protects, strengthens and treats hair during the lightening process, its number of Asian clients doubled.
这种需求可以部分归因于Olaplex在2014年的问世，这是一种添加到漂白剂中的活性成分，用以修复化学损伤，有了它，把染色剂色阶提升10级这样的事就没那么困难了。在18个月前，西村发廊Whittemore House推出了自己的染发配方，可以在增加头发亮度的过程中保护、强化和护理头发，所以它的亚裔顾客的数量翻了一番。
Despite these advances, it’s still challenging to go platinum. It can take up to 12 hours, with as many as six applications of bleach and a bill that can start at $400. That doesn’t take into account the upkeep needed, which includes a regimen of deep conditioning treatments, toners and purple shampoos, and a diligence about monthly touch-ups that can run upward of $200 a visit.
尽管有了这些进步，把头发染成银白色仍是一个挑战。它耗时长达12个小时，需要使用多达6种染色剂，至少花费400美元。这还没算保养费，包括深层护理、调色剂和紫色洗发水，还要不辞辛苦地每月修补一次，每次花费可达200美元。
“You’re stripping your hair down to the follicle, to the point where you have this wiry Brillo pad left on your head,” Ms. Lee said. “That kind of rebellion, that’s not something to take lightly.”
“这是要把头发从毛囊开始全部染一遍，到最后头上就顶着一团Brillo钢丝棉了，”格蕾塔·李说。“那种叛逆，可不是件轻松的事。”
For those who do, it may serve, symbolically, as an act of rebellion against the Asian good-girl trope, an extension of the “model minority” stereotype — conservative, quiet and hard-working. And since “Asian hair” has a history of being exoticized, often accompanied with descriptors like “long, silky smooth and jet black,” flipping it completely on its head becomes a way of taking back ownership and of reclaiming identity.
对于这么做的人来说，这可能是一种象征性的叛逆，反叛的是亚洲乖乖女的俗套——这是“模范少数族裔”保守、安静、勤奋刻板印象的延伸。又因为“亚洲头发”历来具有异国情调，常被人用“顺长、丝滑、乌黑”等词语描述，那么将其彻底颠覆，就成为一种夺回所有权和身份再造的方式。
“Striving to present only one type of hairstyle not only accommodates narrow and fetishized expectations, it also freezes the ability to experiment creatively with appearance,” said Laura Miller, a professor of Japanese studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “Bleached hair is often linked with other forms of body modification, such as piercing and tattooing, and therefore reflects a rejection of mainstream and old-fashioned femininity norms. What better way to signal thinking that is different from one’s parent generation than with a radically different appearance?”
“力求只呈现一种发型，不仅是在迎合狭隘而执迷的期望，还限制了对外表进行创造性实验的能力，”密苏里大学圣路易斯分校(University of Missouri-St. Louis)日本研究教授劳拉·米勒(Laura Miller)说。“漂发往往会与其他形式的身体改造联系在一起，比如穿孔和纹身，因此反映了一种对主流和旧式女性特质规范的拒绝。还有什么能比一个完全不同的外表更能体现与父辈不同的思想呢?”
Dr. Miller, for one, hopes this is a trend in which young Asian-Americans are pulling style and cultural cues from Asian countries. “What they see in Asia, especially in Japan and Korea, is a lot of hybridity and playfulness with hair colors and styles,” she said. “When Asian-Americans bleach their hair, they may not have in mind white Americans, but rather Asian celebrities such as Moga Mogami or Hyo-yeon Kim.”
拿米勒来说，她希望这是年轻的亚裔美国人从亚洲国家捕捉风格和文化线索的一种趋势。“他们眼中的亚洲，尤其是日本和韩国，在头发颜色和风格上有很大的混杂性和趣味性，”她说。“当亚裔美国人漂发时，他们心里想的可能不是美国白人，而是比如最上摩卡(Moga Mogami)和金孝渊(Hyo-yeon Kim)这样的亚洲明星。”
One can make the argument that hair color and race are, or should be, mutually exclusive. “Caucasians are able to jump around, and it’s not a big deal for them to be blond, a redhead or brunet, whereas those same rules don’t apply to us,” Ms. Lee said. “It would be so empowering to be able to just try anything the way the rest of the world seems to be able to without any problems.”
有人会说发色和种族是——或者应该是——互斥的。“白种人可以有各种变化，他们是金发红发还是棕发都没什么大不了，然而这些同样的规矩却不适用于我们，”格蕾塔·李说。“要是可以像世界上的其他人一样，能毫无问题地进行任何尝试，那将是一种有力的赋权。”
Even if the intention is to fit in, having pale hair as an Asian has unpredictable effects. Ms. Leung said she has noticed more head-swiveling stares. Ms. Rim found it to be an outlet for creativity. And Jessica Wu, a stylist, producer and model, credits her six-month-old icy blond hair as the reason she is landing more modeling jobs, including the recent Glossier Lidstar campaign.
哪怕这么做的目的是想要融入，作为亚裔有一头浅色的头发也会带来不可预知的效果。梁伊妮表示，她发现更多的人会转头看她。丽兹·任把这当成了创造力的出口。造型师、制作人、模特杰西卡·吴(Jessica Wu)把最近模特工作机会增多归功于留了六个月的浅金色头发，包括近来Glossier品牌的“眼影明星”(Lidstar)广告。
“Having blond hair has forced me to reassess how I wanted to present myself to the world,” Ms. Wu said. “It’s given me more confidence, it affects the way I dress and the way I perform as a model, and it’s allowed me to be more experimental in terms of my personal style.”
“一头金发强迫我重新审视我想如何向世界展现自己，”杰西卡·吴说。“这给了我更大的自信，影响了我的穿衣方式和我作为模特的表现，也允许我在个人造型上有更大的实验性。”
This freedom of expression feels right in line with the values of millennials and Gen Z-ers who prioritize experiences and authenticity above everything else. “I just wanted to shake up my look, but I think with any modification, it’s a break in tradition, and I think we’re more brazen now with what we do,” Ms. Leung said.
这种表现自由给人感觉恰好符合了千禧一代和Z世代将体验和真实性置于一切之上的价值观。“我只是想转变一下我的形象，但我认为任何改变都是对传统的突破，我也觉得我们的所作所为让我们现在更加明目张胆了，”梁伊妮说。
While it’s easy to write this off as a beauty trend, this growing community points to stirrings of change on a much larger scale, like the shaping of a new Asian-American identity.
虽然能把这轻松归结为一种美容潮流，但这个不断壮大的群体指向了一种更大层面上的变化，比如一种新亚裔美国人身份的塑造。
“Maybe this is one part of unlocking the standards we’ve been imprisoned by,” Ms. Lee said. “It may seem like a silly, frivolous act, an act of vanity, but Asians and Asian-Americans have a history of being marginalized and ignored, so whatever the political statement is, maybe by having blond hair, it’s a very simple declaration: ‘Here I am. Pay attention to me. See me.’”
“或许这是解开禁锢我们的标准的一部分，”格蕾塔·李说。“这看上去可能是一种傻乎乎的、轻佻的举动，是一种虚荣行为，但亚洲人和亚裔美国人向来有着被边缘化、被无视的历史，因此无论政治声明是什么，也许通过一头金发只是要传达一个简单的信息：‘我在这里。注意我。看到我。’”
