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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
We knew there were political divisions in this country between urban and rural areas, but last year's election showed us just how stark1 those differences are. And one trend we're following - people of similar political stripes are in some cases seeking each other out. Northern Idaho, for example, is becoming a beacon2 for conservative transplants from California. Here's NPR's Kirk Siegler.
ADRIEN KOCH: We have dogs. Thank goodness they're in there, and they didn't bark.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE3: Adrien Koch retired4 last summer from her job with FEMA in the Bay Area. After vacationing in the wooded mountains of north Idaho, she and her husband fell in love, and they moved here a few months later. It reminds cook of the California she knew in the '70s.
KOCH: It's kind of like a better time that's gone by, yeah. It's a much slower pace.
SIEGLER: Koch is 62 with graying blonde hair. She's sitting on the couch in her Spartan5 living room. The house she bought in this quiet cul-de-sac is twice as big and half as expensive as the one she had in California, but that's only one reason why she left.
KOCH: I did not feel safe.
SIEGLER: Why is that?
KOCH: Because of the crime. The crime has escalated6. And the element that has moved out of San Francisco and moving farther and farther out so the farther out you go, yes, it's less expensive, but it's also more dangerous.
SIEGLER: Koch instantly felt at home in small town Idaho. She says there are a lot of like-minded Christians7. And as she's gotten older, to her surprise, she's become more conservative.
KOCH: I've always been fearful of guns. However, I'm open now to learning. And the gun stores and gun clubs here in Coeur d'Alene are very warm and welcoming. They're very helpful.
SIEGLER: Cook was also struck by just how many expat Californians are here. They're everywhere - the gun shop owners, the retirees at the golf resorts. They hold seats on school boards and in local government.
KOCH: I immediately tell people, especially if they're not from California, I am not one of those people who want to change Idaho. I love it the way it is. That's why we're here.
SIEGLER: But North Idaho, at least, has changed. It wasn't always so staunchly conservative. A lot of people I talked to traced this shift back to the early '90s. That was around the time of the deadly earthquakes in California. There was a lot of racial tension after the Rodney King beating, and out migration8 to states like Idaho really picked up.
North Idaho's population has since doubled. And even as late as 2015, the census9 shows that more than a quarter of all new residents moving to the state still came from California. In the town of Post Falls, I met C.J. Buck10, the owner of Buck Knives.
C.J. BUCK: So this is our manufacturing facility.
SIEGLER: They make heavy-duty hunting knives, the kind you might gut11 an elk12 with.
BUCK: We just picked up and moved. We brought about 60 people with us.
SIEGLER: They left Southern California a few years back because he says the cost of doing business there got too high. He entertained an enticing13 tax incentive14 package from Portland, Ore., but they settled on Idaho.
BUCK: We looked at Idaho as not having a major metropolitan15 area. That would mean as a state we would stay truer to those rural understandings.
SIEGLER: What he's saying is that there's no major city like Portland or Los Angeles that would swing Idaho's politics to the left, especially when it comes to minimum wage increases.
BUCK: The beauty of Idaho is you just never lose connection. It's the people who need the jobs are the ones voting on the issues.
SIEGLER: Now, that rural vote Buck is talking about played a big role in the surprise election of Donald Trump16. And if you think about the Electoral College just for a minute, it's weighed disproportionately to rural red states like Idaho. So conservative folks like Buck, if they move up to Idaho their vote has nearly twice as much impact as it did in California.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Are you ready now?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: OK. Welcome.
SIEGLER: One frigid17 night I ducked into a restaurant next to the resorts that were built recently along the shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene. Here is the monthly meeting of North Idaho's Progressive Diners. The people in this small crowd half joked that I was looking at the only Democrats19 left in Kootenai County. Eighty-year-old Mary Lou Reed was the last one to represent this area in the state legislature. She was ousted20 in 1994.
MARY LOU REED: Well, the economy changed enormously. The lumber21 mills are all gone. The mines are shuttered down. We do not have labor22 unions that are active.
SIEGLER: Reid also moved up here from California, but in 1956. And she recalls how North Idaho was once the country's top silver producer, and union Democrats ruled up until the late '80s. Now this county doesn't have a single Democrat18 in office. Reed says the thing that no one's talking about out in the open with all these changes is white flight out of California.
REED: We're very, very white up here.
SIEGLER: Kootenai County is 95 percent white, compared to much of Southern California today, say, where whites are now in the minority.
REED: People who move here from Southern California will never overtly23 say that they are racist24. They'll just say we left Southern California 'cause the crime was getting to be so awful.
SIEGLER: She insists that race plays a part in some people's decisions to move up here.
REED: No question. The white flight is to flee from a multi-racial situation into one in which everybody looks the same. It's very dull.
SIEGLER: This is definitely an uncomfortable subject. Some of the transplants I met didn't really want to talk about race as a reason why they did or didn't move here. And others told me it just didn't have anything to do with it. Race and politics, it's complicated in North Idaho just like anywhere else.
ANNA OROPEZA: We don't got much time left, so.
SIEGLER: I met Anna and Luis Oropeza in their modest home in one of the new subdivisions sprouting25 up in the pine forests on the western edge of Coeur d'Alene.
A. OROPEZA: Looking at houses it's the first thing, I'm like, oh, there's another Californian moving to the neighborhood.
SIEGLER: The Oropezas relocated last year from California. For Anna it was like coming home. She grew up here. Her parents moved her up from Orange County in the early '90s. When they decided26 to move they were a little apprehensive27 at first. Anna is white and Lewis is Hispanic. They're raising two African-American foster kids, and one who is Latina.
LUIS OROPEZA: When I first moved up here I heard people were like, oh, you're going to get, you know, the eye or whatever, but it's never happened to me. People are just as nice as can be.
SIEGLER: The couple thinks this is a safer place to raise their kids. And they like the politics, too. Luis says Idaho is more live and let live.
L. OROPEZA: You know, the laws are just way too strict compared to up here. You know, here you can actually practice your amendments28. Down there, you get really restricted. You know, and it's - a lot of people like the freedom.
SIEGLER: A gun owner, Luis says that even he was surprised when he first walked into a store here and saw someone openly carrying and it was no big deal. In California, he says, someone would call the cops right away. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
1 stark | |
adj.荒凉的;严酷的;完全的;adv.完全地 | |
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2 beacon | |
n.烽火,(警告用的)闪火灯,灯塔 | |
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3 byline | |
n.署名;v.署名 | |
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4 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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5 spartan | |
adj.简朴的,刻苦的;n.斯巴达;斯巴达式的人 | |
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6 escalated | |
v.(使)逐步升级( escalate的过去式和过去分词 );(使)逐步扩大;(使)更高;(使)更大 | |
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7 Christians | |
n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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8 migration | |
n.迁移,移居,(鸟类等的)迁徙 | |
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9 census | |
n.(官方的)人口调查,人口普查 | |
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10 buck | |
n.雄鹿,雄兔;v.马离地跳跃 | |
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11 gut | |
n.[pl.]胆量;内脏;adj.本能的;vt.取出内脏 | |
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12 elk | |
n.麋鹿 | |
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13 enticing | |
adj.迷人的;诱人的 | |
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14 incentive | |
n.刺激;动力;鼓励;诱因;动机 | |
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15 metropolitan | |
adj.大城市的,大都会的 | |
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16 trump | |
n.王牌,法宝;v.打出王牌,吹喇叭 | |
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17 frigid | |
adj.寒冷的,凛冽的;冷淡的;拘禁的 | |
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18 democrat | |
n.民主主义者,民主人士;民主党党员 | |
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19 democrats | |
n.民主主义者,民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
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20 ousted | |
驱逐( oust的过去式和过去分词 ); 革职; 罢黜; 剥夺 | |
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21 lumber | |
n.木材,木料;v.以破旧东西堆满;伐木;笨重移动 | |
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22 labor | |
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦 | |
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23 overtly | |
ad.公开地 | |
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24 racist | |
n.种族主义者,种族主义分子 | |
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25 sprouting | |
v.发芽( sprout的现在分词 );抽芽;出现;(使)涌现出 | |
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26 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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27 apprehensive | |
adj.担心的,恐惧的,善于领会的 | |
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28 amendments | |
(法律、文件的)改动( amendment的名词复数 ); 修正案; 修改; (美国宪法的)修正案 | |
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