美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Go Back Where You Came From': The Long Rhetorical Roots Of Trump's Racist Tweets

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

Four U.S. Congresswomen, all women of color, held a news conference yesterday. They denounced racist¹ remarks that President Trump² made over the weekend. They said he's promoting a white nationalist agenda. But the president doubled down, at one point tweeting in all caps, quote, "if you are not happy here, you can leave," exclamation³ point. That kind of language has deep roots in this country. Here's NPR's Andrew Limbong.

ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE⁴: Sometimes it happens in a schoolyard. Sometimes it happens on a bus or in a store. There was that viral video from 2017 of it happening in an Arkansas Walmart - a woman telling another shopper to go back to Mexico.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Run your mouth. Go back to Mexico.

EVA HICKS: Listen - I said, excuse me.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Go back, wherever you're from.

LIMBONG: For Alan Kraut, it was something he heard growing up in New York City.

ALAN KRAUT: When kids had a fight in the street and the kids were from different ethnic⁵ groups, one kid would often say to the other, you and your parents, go back where you came from.

LIMBONG: Kraut's a professor of history at American University, and he's working on a book about nativism in America.

KRAUT: And, you know, it could mean Brooklyn, but it could also mean, go back where you came from - were you, you know, Russian Jews who came to the United States, Southern Italians who came to the United States, Puerto Ricans newly arrived.

LIMBONG: Jennifer Wingard is a professor of rhetoric⁶ at the University of Houston. She sees this type of sentiment dating back to 1798 with John Adams and the Alien and Sedition⁷ Acts aimed at Western European immigrants.

JENNIFER WINGARD: It actually is constructed for the ability to remove immigrants who are saying things against the U.S. government - should be able to remove these people whether they are here legally or not, to get rid of them and send them home, send them back to their own country.

LIMBONG: The language of American nativism - that you, the immigrant, are beneath me, the quote-unquote "native-born" - can be traced back to the mass migration⁸ of the last half of the 1800s, says Kraut, and it's had its American boosters ever since.

KRAUT: Madison Grant, who is a noted⁹ early 20th century nativist.

LIMBONG: A eugenicist who believed that non-Nordic European immigrants were ruining the blood pool.

KRAUT: Father Coughlin on the radio in the 1930s.

LIMBONG: That's Father Charles Coughlin, an anti-Semitic radio evangelist. Nina Wallace says newspaper owner V.S. McClatchy used to rail on about how Japanese people could never assimilate into American culture.

NINA WALLACE: They never cease being Japanese, you know. No matter how many years, how many generations they've been in this country, they are always something other than American.

LIMBONG: Wallace works at Densho, a Seattle-based oral storytelling project dedicated¹⁰ to Japanese Americans put into camps during World War II. She says exclusionary¹¹ rhetoric became law once again with the Renunciation Act of 1944, a law aimed at getting Japanese Americans to renounce¹² their U.S. citizenship¹³.

WALLACE: They'd been, you know, incarcerated¹⁴ for a couple years already - sort of encouraging them to renounce their American citizenship and, you know, in quotes, like, "go back to Japan."

LIMBONG: Now we have the latest example. Rhetoric professor Jennifer Wingard guard says the specific phrasing of, go back home, back to your country, might change depending on the year, but the sentiment behind it remains¹⁵ clear.

WINGARD: Go back to where you came from is the same as go back to your own country, is the same as you are not allowed here, is the same as no immigrants allowed.

LIMBONG: And there is nothing new about that idea.

Andrew Limbong, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF OLDTWIG'S "WILD COAST")

1 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

2 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

3 exclamation   

n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词

参考例句：

• He could not restrain an exclamation of approval.他禁不住喝一声采。
• The author used three exclamation marks at the end of the last sentence to wake up the readers.作者在文章的最后一句连用了三个惊叹号，以引起读者的注意。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

6 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

7 sedition   

n.煽动叛乱

参考例句：

• Government officials charged him with sedition.政府官员指控他煽动人们造反。
• His denial of sedition was a denial of violence.他对煽动叛乱的否定又是对暴力的否定。

8 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

9 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

10 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

11 exclusionary   

adj.排斥（性）的，排除在外的

参考例句：

• Play not finish, uncle fidgeting, cut exclusionary. 戏未演完，叔父坐立不安，仓皇退席。 来自互联网
• Procecutor: I am asking you to recognize the absurdity of the exclusionary rule. 检察官：我是在请求您认识到这个排除规则的荒谬性。 来自互联网

12 renounce   

v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系

参考例句：

• She decided to renounce the world and enter a convent.她决定弃绝尘世去当修女。
• It was painful for him to renounce his son.宣布与儿子脱离关系对他来说是很痛苦的。

13 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。

14 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

15 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。