奥马巴总统在美国亚太裔传统月庆典上的讲话（中英对照）

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总统在美国亚太裔国会研究会第十八届年度庆典上的讲话

Ritz Carlton

丽思卡尔顿酒店

Washington, D.C.

华盛顿哥伦比亚特区

May 8, 2012

2012年5月8日

… THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. Thank you, Norm, for that kind introduction. More importantly, thank you for your lifetime of distinguished service to our country. I want to thank all the members of Congress who are with us – including two people who are fighting hard every day on behalf of every member of this community – Judy Chu and Mike Honda. Give them a big round of applause.

……总统：非常感谢。谢谢你，诺姆，谢谢你的美言介绍。更要感谢的是你对我们国家所作的毕生杰出贡献。我要感谢所有在场的国会议员，包括每天都在为这一群体而辛勤奋斗的两位议员——赵美心和迈克•本田。请为他们热烈鼓掌。

Now, I am thrilled to be here tonight because all of you hold a special place in my heart. When I think about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, I think about my family – my sister, Maya; my brother-in-law, Konrad, my nieces Suhaila and Savita. I think about all the folks I grew up with in Honolulu, as part of the Hawaiian ohana. I think about the years I spent in Indonesia. So for me, coming here feels a little bit like home. This is a community that helped to make me who I am today. It’s a community that helped make America the country that it is today.

今晚，我来到这里非常激动，因为你们所有人都在我心中占有特殊位置。当我想起美国亚裔和太平洋岛屿族裔时，我就会想到我的家人——我的妹妹玛雅、我的妹夫康拉德以及我的外甥女苏哈伊拉和萨维塔。我会想到所有在夏威夷和我一起长大的人，我的夏威夷大家庭。我会想到我在印度尼西亚度过的岁月。所以，对我来说，来到这里有一种回家的感觉。是这个群体帮助我成为今天这样一个人。是这个群体帮助美国成为今天这样一个国家。

So your heritage spans the world. But what unites everyone is that in all of your families you have stories of perseverance that are uniquely American. Some of you – those from Hawaii or the Pacific Islands – live where your family has lived for generations and your story is, in part, about keeping alive treasured native traditions. But for others, your story starts with ancestors who, at some point, left behind everything they knew to seek the promise of a new land. Maybe the story traces back a century and a half, to the laborers who risked their lives to connect our coasts by rail. Maybe it begins with one of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who, decades ago, made the tough journey to Angel Island.

因此，你们的传统遍及全世界。但将每个人连接在一起的是，你们每个家庭都有着具有美国特色的不懈奋斗的历史。你们中间有些人——来自夏威夷或太平洋岛屿的人——居住在自家祖祖辈辈居住的地方，你们的故事在一定程度上体现着继承和发扬宝贵的本土传统。而对其他人来说，你们的故事起始于祖辈，他们在某个时候放弃了自己所熟悉的一切，追求新世界展现的希望。也许有的故事可以追溯到一个半世纪以前那些冒着生命危险修筑连接东西海岸铁路的劳工。也许有的故事起始于数十年前几十万个历尽千辛万苦踏上天使岛（Angel Island）的移民中的某个人。

Maybe the story starts with your parents. Or maybe it starts with you. But here’s the thing. No matter when it began, no matter where it began, your stories are about someone who came here looking for new opportunities not merely for themselves, but for their children, and for their children’s children, and for all generations to come.

也许这个故事始于你们的父辈，或者就从你自己开始。但有一点，不管从何时开始，从何处开始，你们的故事都是前人到这里寻求新机会的历史，他们不仅是为了自己，而且也是为了儿女，为了儿女的儿女，为了子孙后代。

Few of them had money. A lot of them didn’t have belongings. But what they did have was an unshakeable belief that this country – of all countries – is a place where anybody can make it if they try.

他们几乎都是囊中羞涩地来到这里。很多人一无所有。但他们拥有一个不可动摇的信念，即在所有国家中，这里是一个任何人只要努力就能成功的地方。

Now, many of them faced hardship; many of them faced ridicule; many of them faced racism. Many were treated as second-class citizens – as people who didn’t belong. But they didn’t give up. They didn’t make excuses. They kept forging ahead. They kept building up America. They kept fighting for America – Like Danny Inouye, who’s here. Danny, who was my senator most of my life.

他们当中的许多人处境艰难；他们当中的许多人受到嘲笑；他们当中的许多人面临种族主义。许多人受到二等公民待遇——被当作另类。但是他们没有放弃。他们不找借口，而是继续努力向前。他们不断地建设美国。他们继续为美国作战——就像在座的丹尼·井尚（Danny Inouye）。在我有生以来的大部分时间里，丹尼都是我的参议员。

But they were trailblazers like Dalip Singh Saund – a young man from India who, in 1920, came to study agriculture, stayed to become a farmer, and took on the cause of citizenship for all people of South Asian descent. And once Dalip earned his own citizenship, he stepped up to serve the country he loved – and became the first Asian American elected to the Congress.

他们是达利·辛格·桑德那样的开路人。1920年，年轻的达利从印度来到美国学习农业，留在这里成为一位农民，并从事为所有南亚后裔争取公民权的事业。达利自己取得公民身份后，起身为他热爱的国家服务——成为当选国会议员的第一位亚裔。

They were pioneers like my former congresswoman, Patsy Mink, who was not only the first Asian American woman elected to Congress but the author of Title IX – which has changed the playing field for all of our girls.

还有一批像我的前国会议员帕齐·明克那样的先驱。她不仅是当选国会议员的第一位亚裔女性，也是《教育法修正案第九条》的起草者——这部法律为我国所有女生改变了竞技环境。

And then there’s the story of a young Japanese American boy, just 10 when his family was forced from their home and taken hundreds of miles away to an internment camp. For three years, they lived in that camp, but when that boy got home, he didn’t turn his back on America — he devoted his life to America. In his words, he pledged “to speak out for the underrepresented and to pick up on those issues that weren’t being carried by others.” And as the first Asian American to ever serve in a President’s Cabinet, Norm Mineta made good on that pledge.

还有一位美国日裔男孩的故事。当他的家人被迫离开家园、被赶到数百英里外的拘留营时，他才10岁。他们在那里生活了三年，但那个男孩返回家园后，非但没有背弃美国，而是献身美国。用他自己的话说，他发誓“要为得不到充分代表的人发出声音，要投入未受他人关注的问题。” 诺曼·峰田，作为第一位在总统内阁任职的亚裔，兑现了自己的誓言。

So think about how proud all those previous generations would be to see this room, to see how far this community has come. Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders are now the inventors and entrepreneurs keeping our country on the cutting edge; the businessmen and women at the helm of some of our most successful industries; leaders in every aspect of American life – in science and medicine, in education, in sports, in the arts, in our Armed Forces; in our government and in our courts. In fact, over the past three years, we have more than doubled the number of Asian Americans on the federal bench.

所以想想看，所有先辈看到这个房间、看到这个群体取得了多么长足的进展，会有多么骄傲。现在，亚太裔是保持我国领先实力的投资者和创业者；是在我们最成功的一些行业掌舵的工商业者和女性；是在科学与医学、教育、体育、艺术、我们的武装部队、政府和法院等美国生活各方面的领袖。事实上，过去三年中，担任联邦法官的亚裔人数增加了一倍以上。