Nov 18, 2023 11 min read weekly

DPS 周刊 123 -- 李飞飞的移民奋斗史

最近李飞飞教授出版了她的自传 The Worlds I See, 这是她的个人成长史，也是一部移民的奋斗史。

李飞飞教授在计算机视觉领域做出过卓越贡献，因为她创建的数据集 ImageNet，使得后来的深度学习在图片识别领域有了测试基准，从而大放异彩。

李飞飞教授出生在北京，成长在成都。后来她父亲于1989年先移居到美国，三年后，她和母亲得以成行，与她父亲在美国团聚。

In the initial phase, which I quickly realized was spearheaded by my mother, my father would find work and secure a place to live. In the second phase, to follow shortly thereafter, we would join him.

因为成都没有飞往美国的航班，所以她和母亲先赶到上海，再搭乘飞往美国的航班。离开上海前，李飞飞特地前往浦江饭店，因为传言这里是爱因斯坦曾经下榻的酒店。就在访问上海前后，爱因斯坦获得了诺贝尔奖。当然在年少的李飞飞看来，还有另一层东西激励着她，那就是爱因斯坦也是移民。

Maybe this won’t be so bad, I thought. Einstein was an immigrant, too, after all.

当她们飞抵美国，等了很久，不见她父亲来接机。她和母亲非常焦灼，因为无法联系上她父亲，也没有钱买回中国的机票，更不用说她当时的英语口语不足以和人交流。

My mother had exactly twenty U.S. dollars in her pocket, we had no return ticket, and I quickly found that the couple of years I’d spent learning basic English in school were all but useless in practice.

终于等到她父亲来接机，之所以耽误了很久，是因为他的二手车在路上抛锚了。这种事在囊肿羞涩的移民中经常发生。

到了美国还没喘一口气，她就赶去学校上课。当然第一天的学校生活就让她爱上了美国。

On an otherwise imposing first day, I instantly knew one thing: I would love American teachers.

之后，李飞飞考上了普林斯顿攻读物理，获得了全奖。第一次让这个经济紧张的家庭如释重负。

Every milestone of her life had been a reminder that she was on the wrong side of divides she had no hope of bridging, conditioning her over decades to feign a confidence I knew she never truly felt.

等到从普林斯顿毕业，刚好赶上第一波互联网泡沫。连华尔街也疯狂找人，想赶上这一风口。李飞飞接到了不少华尔街投行的职位，于是她回去和母亲谈起这件事。如果去华尔街工作，高薪立即可以让这个移民家庭脱离困境。但是她母亲只问了两个问题就让李飞飞认识到这并不是她真正想要的。

“Fei-Fei, is it what you want?”
“You know what I want, Mom. I want to be a scientist.”
“So what are we even talking about?”

于是她选择了加州理工攻读研究生，其中一个原因是她在先前访问加州理工时，见到了 Pietro Perona 和 Christof Koch 两位教授。两位不仅照亮了李飞飞的学术梦想，更重要的是，他们的移民背景让她见识到了可能性。

The world as I knew it faded to near silence when I found myself in dialogue with people like Pietro and Christof, as if our ideas alone were doing the talking, unencumbered by our language, status, or age. They were a new kind of role model: immigrants who hadn’t just made it, but had made it as scientists.

二十多年后，功成名就的李飞飞教授被邀请到美国国会听证会作证，而她的母亲当时因为重病在 ICU 躺着。李飞飞教授一边在 ICU 写证词草稿，一边在考虑是否要去国会作证，因为那样可能没有人能照顾她母亲。

Disease, however, is no match for the pride of an immigrant mother; the opportunity to see her daughter address the United States Congress, little more than two decades after arriving in this country, was simply too much to pass up.

尽管早已大获成功，回忆起自己的移民经历，李飞飞教授还是不由感叹：