美国国家公共电台 NPR 9 First-Person Perspectives Give Voice To 'The Other Americans'

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Laila Lalami's new novel begins with a crime. A man is run over in a dark intersection¹ late at night. It's a hit and-run. The victim is a Moroccan immigrant, killed by a speeding car outside the diner he runs in the Mojave Desert. His death unspools the stories of a group of nine characters - the victim's daughter and widow, the detective assigned to the case and others. All the perspectives work to illuminate² the mystery of what happened on that night but also how these people are connected to one another despite all the fractures that run through American life. The book is called "The Other Americans." And Laila Lalami joins me now.

Welcome.

LAILA LALAMI: Thank you for having me.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This story centers around a killing³. An immigrant of Moroccan descent, like yourself, is killed in a hit-and-run. Tell us about him and this family.

LALAMI: So his name is Driss Guerraoui. He's somebody who moved with his wife in 1981 from Morocco to California. And the reason that they decided⁴ to uproot⁵ their family was because he had run into some political trouble at home. And he thought - his wife felt that he was in danger, and he - they wanted to seek safety. And so they move to California, where they start a business and seem, outwardly, to be perfectly⁶ happy and successful family. And then the book opens with this suspicious accident.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And this book is told through nine narrators. It's a sort of mosaic⁷ of race and class in America. And all these narrators tell their stories in the first person. We're seeing their experiences through their eyes. Why did you want to do it that way?

LALAMI: For something like this, it just seemed to me that it was impossible to capture the complexity⁸ of the immigrant experience through just the one perspective of the man who dies at the beginning of the book. And by conveying it from these different perspectives, my hope was that readers would get different ideas about immigration. For example, one of the narrators is the wife and her experience of immigration. She wanted to move here because she wanted to keep her family together. And maybe she succeeded, and maybe she didn't succeed. And then another narrator, for example, is the witness to the hit-and-run, who's...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Efrain.

LALAMI: Yes, correct. And he's an undocumented immigrant. And that creates a sort of moral dilemma⁹ for him. Should he come forward and say what he has seen and, in doing so, basically, risk his own safety and his own family's safety?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And among the other characters are Coleman, a black detective, Jeremy, an Iraq War veteran, Nora, the victim's daughter. And they're all bound together in this story of America at this moment and since 9/11.

LALAMI: Yeah. I mean, I think each of the characters in this book has, basically, had the experience of dislocation. And the victim's daughter Nora is, essentially¹¹, the main character. She's the one who is forced to return home to this small town that she thought she had left behind for good. And she's really living, truly, with the ripple¹² effect of her parents' decision to move to the United States because she's born here. She is in this place but not exactly of it because she's constantly reminded that she's different as she's growing up. So it really is about, also, the children of immigrants.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And all these characters, they also seem to have this central theme, which is that they work hard. But they have had to work hard against prejudice, against the forces beyond their control. I mean, Driss came to America, built a life. But after 9/11, his doughnut shop was burned to the ground. And then he started over with a diner. It's this sort of, like, constant thing of trying to move forward and capture the American dream and then things taking it away.

LALAMI: Yeah. He's an interesting fellow because as a college student, he was very much, I would say, on the left side of the political spectrum¹³. Things didn't quite work out in Morocco in the 1980s for that kind of student, and so he was forced to leave. But then he gets sort of seduced¹⁴ by the American dream and the idea of financial success. And the irony¹⁵ is that he's actually quite satisfied with his life before this car accident happens.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You've been outspoken¹⁶ about how you see America right now, especially after the travel ban. You wrote, America embraces me with one arm, but it pushes me away with the other. This book seems like a response to that. Is it?

LALAMI: I suppose so. I think it's a book that basically looks at the experience of immigration, which, I think, we're often shown in the news almost exclusively as a law enforcement issue. So, for example, there's so much talk about border crossings. And, you know, we hear about national emergencies. And immigration is, really, a natural, ordinary human experience. It happens every day. And there are 40 million immigrants in this country, and their experiences are very varied¹⁷. But one thing that they do have in common is this periodic experience of seeing - of living their lives in the particular but then seeing it reflected to them in the generic¹⁸.

What I mean when I say that America embraces me with one arm is that we hear constantly about these ideals, like America was built by immigrants. On the other hand, you also hear about various bad hombres across the border, so where immigrants are portrayed¹⁹ as people who are coming here to, quote, unquote, "steal jobs" and so on. So these dual²⁰ portrayals²¹ are - it can be difficult for immigrants on a daily basis.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: In this book, though, you show a way that we can understand each other despite our differences. You know, Nora and Jeremy, the Iraq vet¹⁰, they come together, for example. Do you think that's fiction, the way that you hope the world will be? Or do you believe that we can see past this moment of division?

LALAMI: Well, that's a very interesting question. I think in the book, there are certain disagreements that can be bridged. And there are other disagreements that cannot be bridged. I cannot, for example, compromise with someone who wishes that I would disappear from this country. Then I don't think that the book offers that as a possibility at all. But I think that we can learn from hearing from others. And as long as those others are treating us as complete human beings and see us in our - all of our complexity, then I think that, of course, listening to one another is the first step.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Laila Lalami - her new book is "The Other Americans." Thank you very much.

LALAMI: My pleasure.

1 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

2 illuminate   

vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释

参考例句：

• Dreams kindle a flame to illuminate our dark roads.梦想点燃火炬照亮我们黑暗的道路。
• They use games and drawings to illuminate their subject.他们用游戏和图画来阐明他们的主题。

3 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 uproot   

v.连根拔起，拔除；根除，灭绝；赶出家园，被迫移开

参考例句：

• The family decided to uproot themselves and emigrate to Australia.他们全家决定离开故土，移居澳大利亚。
• The trunk of an elephant is powerful enough to uproot trees.大象的长鼻强壮得足以将树木连根拔起。

6 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

7 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

8 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

9 dilemma   

n.困境，进退两难的局面

参考例句：

• I am on the horns of a dilemma about the matter.这件事使我进退两难。
• He was thrown into a dilemma.他陷入困境。

10 vet   

n.兽医，退役军人；vt.检查

参考例句：

• I took my dog to the vet.我把狗带到兽医诊所看病。
• Someone should vet this report before it goes out.这篇报道发表之前应该有人对它进行详查。

11 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

12 ripple   

n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进

参考例句：

• The pebble made a ripple on the surface of the lake.石子在湖面上激起一个涟漪。
• The small ripple split upon the beach.小小的涟漪卷来，碎在沙滩上。

13 spectrum   

n.谱，光谱，频谱；范围，幅度，系列

参考例句：

• This is a kind of atomic spectrum.这是一种原子光谱。
• We have known much of the constitution of the solar spectrum.关于太阳光谱的构成，我们已了解不少。

14 seduced   

诱奸( seduce的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾引； 诱使堕落； 使入迷

参考例句：

• The promise of huge profits seduced him into parting with his money. 高额利润的许诺诱使他把钱出了手。
• His doctrines have seduced many into error. 他的学说把许多人诱入歧途。

15 irony   

n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄

参考例句：

• She said to him with slight irony.她略带嘲讽地对他说。
• In her voice we could sense a certain tinge of irony.从她的声音里我们可以感到某种讥讽的意味。

16 outspoken   

adj.直言无讳的，坦率的，坦白无隐的

参考例句：

• He was outspoken in his criticism.他在批评中直言不讳。
• She is an outspoken critic of the school system in this city.她是这座城市里学校制度的坦率的批评者。

17 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

18 generic   

adj.一般的，普通的，共有的

参考例句：

• I usually buy generic clothes instead of name brands.我通常买普通的衣服，不买名牌。
• The generic woman appears to have an extraordinary faculty for swallowing the individual.一般妇女在婚后似乎有特别突出的抑制个性的能力。

19 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

20 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。

21 portrayals   

n.画像( portrayal的名词复数 )；描述；描写；描摹

参考例句：

• And painters alluded to her eroticism in their bare breasted portrayals of the dying queen. 画家们把她描绘为裸胸垂死的贪欲的女王。 来自互联网