美国国家公共电台 NPR 'A Good Provider' Argues Migration Can Be Salvation

'A Good Provider' Argues Migration¹ Can Be Salvation²

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

In 1987, reporter Jason DeParle went to sleep on the floor of a shanty³ in Manila for the first time. He came to the Philippines to find out more about poverty in the developing world. When he got there, he asked a nun⁴ with connections in a slum to help him find a family to take him in.

JASON DEPARLE: She walked me through the squatter⁵ camp and auctioned⁶ me off on the spot. I'm not sure who was more frightened, Tita, the woman I moved in with, or me.

KELLY: DeParle would spend several months sleeping on the floor of Tita and Emet Comodas' and he would spend the next 32 years following their family as they spread out around the world for work and a future outside the slums. My co-host, Ari Shapiro, recently sat down with Jason DeParle to talk about his new book based on that reporting.

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE⁷: The book is called "A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves," and it's the story of global migration in the 21st century through the eyes of Tita, Emet and their middle daughter, Rosalie.

DEPARLE: She was a shy, 15-year-old schoolgirl who you wouldn't have guessed would be the teenager in the slum with a driving ambition to get out. She was very religious. She didn't have any particular academic promise. She was a C student. What really leapt out to me about her high school record wasn't her grades but her attendance. In four years of poverty and actual revolution in the Philippines, she never missed a day of school.

SHAPIRO: And who is Rosalie today?

DEPARLE: She's now a 48-year-old nurse and a mother of three living in a suburb of Houston and working in a Texas hospital.

SHAPIRO: When you moved in with that family in the Philippines, global migration was not the force that it is today.

DEPARLE: Migration was the last thing on my mind when I moved in with the family. I was interested in slum life.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

DEPARLE: Migration turned out to be how the family survived. Tita's husband, Rosalie's father, Emet, was a guest worker in Saudi Arabia cleaning pools at a Saudi air base for two years at a time and the mom was home raising the kids on the money he sent back. All five of their children grew up to become overseas workers like the father. So their generation lived the rise of global migration.

SHAPIRO: Will you read a paragraph from - this is describing the first time that the patriarch of the family, Emet, starts sending money home from Saudi Arabia. This is in the early 1980s.

DEPARLE: (Reading) The first time Emet sent money, Tita cried. In Manila, he made about $50 a month; in Saudi, $500, plus his moonlighting job. Tita stopped running out of fish and rice. She bought extra school uniforms so she didn't have to wash every day. She bought a closet to hang them in. After years of toothaches, she had seven teeth pulled and treated herself to dentures. She bought a fan to stir the stagnant⁸ air and a television after the neighbors complained that the kids watch theirs through the window. Rosalie loved television, but the ultimate luxury was the family's first bed. I was ecstatic that we could lay on something soft.

SHAPIRO: The specificity of the transformation⁹ is just incredible. It's clear that working overseas is a vital lifeline for millions of families. And it's also clear that these overseas workers are often abused, overworked. If they get injured on the job, they might be just discarded. How do you reconcile those two things?

DEPARLE: I think every Filipino is aware of the risks they take in going overseas. You can't escape it in the Manila papers. Half the headlines read like gold rush ads, you know, about remittance¹⁰ tallies¹¹ setting new records and half read like human rights complaints. You know, we slept with dogs. We were raped¹². We had no food. I think the fact that so many people are willing to leave their families and take such risks and be apart for such a length of time is just another measure of their poverty and desperation.

SHAPIRO: But on the whole, I don't know whether to think of this as a force for good or a force that lets people take advantage of disadvantaged human beings.

DEPARLE: You know, I don't think the word is or.

SHAPIRO: Yeah.

DEPARLE: And.

SHAPIRO: Yeah. This book is not just about this family, and it's not just about the Philippines. You write that immigration is the defining story of the 21st century. And I want to put you on that because I think some people would say the global war on terror is the defining story of the 21st century or the global recession or technology and connectivity. What makes you say that immigration is the story of the century?

DEPARLE: I think the lightbulb moment for me was when I discovered the remittances¹³. The sums that migrants send home were three times the world's foreign aid budgets combined. Conservatives like to say poor people need to do more to help themselves. Migrants do. And after learning that, I started reading the headlines I think with a different eye and often saw that the story behind the story was a migration story. Whether it's global warming, whether it's terrorism, whether it's voting patterns in the United States, more and more the news seemed to me that it had a hidden migration element. I got a little obsessive¹⁴ about it, began to see migration everywhere, in culture, in music, in food, in art, in politics.

SHAPIRO: OK. So your main character, Rosalie, works in the United Arab Emirates as a nurse for seven years before she comes to the U.S. How does her family's experience in the U.S. differ from other countries where people that you followed have been guest workers?

DEPARLE: Well, she could come permanently¹⁵, and she could bring her kids. So Abu Dhabi is a guest worker state. You can never get citizenship¹⁶ there. You can never get the permanent residency. You're always...

SHAPIRO: Kids born there are not citizens.

DEPARLE: No, no. You're always there as a guest of the government. And when you're 60, you're expected to leave. I think the permanence of it was central to what attracted her to it. She did come here and become American. She could never become Emirati.

SHAPIRO: And indeed Rosalie's children now blend in with all of the other multicultural¹⁷, multicolored American kids in Texas.

DEPARLE: Yeah. If you doubt the powers of American assimilation, try to keep American culture from a teenager. That just - Rosalie, when the kids first got here, was so worried about preserving their, what she called, Filipino values. She wanted them to watch Filipino TV. She wanted them to keep speaking Tagalog. And she just couldn't keep American society out. It just - it was in their pockets with their phones. It was in their schools. It was everywhere.

SHAPIRO: Rosalie and her family came to the U.S. during the Obama administration. And your story includes their experience in the U.S. during the Trump¹⁸ administration. With immigration restrictions¹⁹ and vilification²⁰ of immigrants being such a central part of the Trump agenda, do you think their experience in this country has changed as a result of who's in the White House?

DEPARLE: I don't think we know the answer to that yet. I think having a president who so openly speaks of immigrants in such derogatory terms is a new experience. I don't think we know the long-term effects it's going to have on immigrant communities and how they adapt and adjust to the U.S. Because Rosalie is here legally as a permanent resident, because she's educated, because she has a job, her kids are thriving, there hasn't been any immediate²¹ impact. Whether there's going to be a long-term impact on all immigrants I think is an open question.

SHAPIRO: Jason DeParle is a reporter for The New York Times and his new book is called "A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family And Migration In The 21St Century." Great to talk to you.

DEPARLE: Thank you, Ari.

SHAPIRO: As Jason was leaving, he mentioned that there was one other paragraph from the book that he'd like to read, something he felt captured a way of looking at immigration that some people miss. Here it is.

DEPARLE: (Reading) Rosalie's escape from the slums is a minor²² miracle. Migration was her vehicle of salvation. It delivered her from the living conditions of the 19th century. It respected her talent, rewarded her sweat and enlarged her capacity for giving. It made her life deeper, fuller and more filled with hope. It's great that migration helped her help others, but it's also great that it helped her help herself. That her quest ended in Texas is something for Americans to cheer. It's good for your country to be the place that people go to make dreams come true.

1 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。

2 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。

3 shanty   

n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子

参考例句：

• His childhood was spent in a shanty.他的童年是在一个简陋小屋里度过的。
• I want to quit this shanty.我想离开这烂房子。

4 nun   

n.修女，尼姑

参考例句：

• I can't believe that the famous singer has become a nun.我无法相信那个著名的歌星已做了修女。
• She shaved her head and became a nun.她削发为尼。

5 squatter   

n.擅自占地者

参考例句：

• The squatter settlements originally came into being through illegal land invasions. 违章建筑区最初是通过非法的土地占有而形成的。
• Squatter control is maintained by regular patrols and hut-to-hut checks. 当局定期逐户视察所有寮屋，以收管制之效。

6 auctioned   

v.拍卖( auction的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• It was sad to see all grandmother's lovely things being auctioned off. 眼看着祖母那些可爱的东西全都被拍卖掉，心里真不好受。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• TV franchises will be auctioned to the highest bidder. 电视特许经营权将拍卖给出价最高的投标人。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 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。

8 stagnant   

adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的

参考例句：

• Due to low investment,industrial output has remained stagnant.由于投资少，工业生产一直停滞不前。
• Their national economy is stagnant.他们的国家经济停滞不前。

9 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

10 remittance   

n.汇款，寄款，汇兑

参考例句：

• Your last month's salary will be paid by remittance.最后一个月的薪水将通过汇寄的方式付给你。
• A prompt remittance would be appreciated.速寄汇款不胜感激。

11 tallies   

n.账( tally的名词复数 )；符合；（计数的）签；标签v.计算，清点( tally的第三人称单数 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合

参考例句：

• Cash on hand tallies with the figure in the accounts. 现款跟账上的数目没有出入。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He tallies his own marks. 他把自己的得分记了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

13 remittances   

n.汇寄( remittance的名词复数 )；汇款，汇款额

参考例句：

• He sends regular remittances to his parents. 他定期汇款给他父母。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Remittances sometimes account for as much as 20% of GDP. 在这些国家中，此类汇款有时会占到GDP的20%之多。 来自互联网

14 obsessive   

adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的

参考例句：

• Some people are obsessive about cleanliness.有些人有洁癖。
• He's becoming more and more obsessive about punctuality.他对守时要求越来越过分了。

15 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

16 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。

17 multicultural   

adj.融合多种文化的，多种文化的

参考例句：

• Children growing up in a multicultural society.在多元文化社会中长大的孩子们。
• The school has been attempting to bring a multicultural perspective to its curriculum.这所学校已经在尝试将一种多元文化视角引入其课程。

18 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。

19 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

20 vilification   

n.污蔑，中伤，诽谤

参考例句：

• They pelted him with ridicule and vilification. 他们用嘲笑和丑化对他进行猛烈的攻击。 来自互联网
• Bishop's letter was the signal for a campaign of vilification and intimidation unequaled in American history. 主教的信是发动一场在美国历史上没有前例的诬蔑和恐吓运动的信号。 来自互联网

21 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

22 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。