在眾多台灣詩人中，余光中以其鄉愁詩歌與強烈的國族意識，聞名於華人世界。但本文基於霍爾的理論，試圖歷史化余光中的文化認同，認為在1958年訪美之後，余光中才開始其鄉愁轉折。余光中早期詩歌所表現多是崇尚冒險與永恆的浪漫主義精神，離家反而是獲得自由；正是在美國遇見陌生他者的經驗確立了余光中的中國認同。因此在美國的鄉愁詩，描述的儘管是當地的景色，最後總是要回歸到想像中的故鄉，形成雙中心的意義框架：此地與他方，現在與過去，並存且彼此辯證。最後本文認為書寫鄉愁並不只是再現家國之思，也是透過書寫重新釐清自己與新世界的關係，並且確認自己的國族認同，因此認同的書寫同時不免也是認同的建構。

Among many Taiwanese poets, Yu Kwang-chung has drawn special attention from the worldwide Chinese readers for his national consciousness and nostalgia poetry. Based on Stuart Hall's theory about cultural identity, this paper attempts to historize Yu's cultural identity, arguing that only after his journey to America in 1958 did he start to formulate a nostalgic turn in his poetry writing. Under the influence of Romanticism, Yu's early poetry expresses a yielding for freedom, adventure, and the infinite and never views the state of exile or out of place as a painful and remorseful experience. But as soon as he encountered the other's discriminating gaze in the United States, he could not help but recollect collective cultural memories and conceive himself as a Chinese exile. Thus his nostalgia poetry, written during the stay in America, demonstrates a narrative pattern, always starting from the scenery at the present to the hometown in the past. Here and there, the present and the past coexist and penetrate each other and then constitute a contrapuntal structure and two-centered frame of reference for interpreting the new experiences. This paper then argues that writing nostalgia poetry is not only a necessity for expressing one's longing for the country and hometown, but also a surviving strategy for articulating the triangle relation of hometown, alien land and one's self-identity. Writing self-identity therefore signifies a commitment and a decision, a commitment to the country of the origin and a decision to refuse the lure of the new home. Ultimately, to be an exile and to write about one's nostalgia are reciprocal and interdependent.