美国国家公共电台 NPR Coastal Vietnamese Community Leans On Faith, And Each Other, To Rebuild After Harvey

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

And now let's go to Texas for a few minutes. It might seem like it was a lifetime ago, but it was just two weeks ago that Hurricane Harvey hit Texas. Our reporters have been trying to get to as many places as they can to report on what's been happening. John Burnett found himself in Rockport, Texas, surveying what remains¹ of St. Peter Catholic church. That church has long served the large Vietnamese community there. And John tells us it's going to be a long road back.

LEAH OLIVA: This used to be our church. And it was built here, I think, in the early '90s. I haven't been inside to see the devastation², so.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE³: Leah Oliva is a catechist and secretary at St. Peter. She steps into a church sanctuary⁴ that looks like a bomb went off inside.

OLIVA: Careful.

BURNETT: A gulf⁵ breeze comes through a gaping⁶ hole in the east wall. Most of the stained glass windows are blasted away. Somehow, St. Martin de Porres survived. The hymnals and prayer books are swollen⁷ and discolored. But the massive wooden carving⁸ of Jesus on the cross hangs over the altar undisturbed. Father John Tran surveys the wreckage⁹.

JOHN TRAN: It's sad. It's sad. It will take a while to recover because...

BURNETT: It's going to take a while to recover.

TRAN: Recover, yeah. But I know we have to accept the nature of it. We still believe God will help us, you know?

BURNETT: OK, you still believe God will help you.

TRAN: God is present here. We lost everything.

BURNETT: The cohesion¹⁰ and resilience of this coastal¹¹ Vietnamese-American community - that number is about 1,000 - may help them recover from the storm's destruction. The popular fishing village with its famous Oak trees looks like it was fed into a shredder.

The Vietnamese have faced adversity before. They came here 42 years ago after the fall of South Vietnam with very little. In the early days, they worked on shrimp¹² boats. Leah Oliva came to Texas from Saigon when she was six with the larger migration¹³.

OLIVA: When they came here in order to get themselves up and running, to actually build a boat, they went into their family nucleus¹⁴ to borrow money instead of going outside somewhere else. They borrow money from each other and then they repay them.

BURNETT: With the Gulf shrimp industry in decline, most Vietnamese sold their boats. They opened nail salons¹⁵, got teaching certificates and engineering degrees and built bait stands. Sunlight streams through a hole in the roof of the Fulton Harbor bait stand onto empty tanks of croakers, piggies (ph) and mullet. Owners Long Nguyen and his wife Nelda Salazar are still assessing the damage.

NELDA SALAZAR: The pilings in the bottom might be damaged. So we're going...

LONG NGUYEN: We're going to start all over. Start all over.

BURNETT: You're going to rebuild your whole bait stand?

NGUYEN: Yeah, yeah. This the first building going to come down.

BURNETT: Did you have insurance?

NGUYEN: No.

BURNETT: As for rebuilding the Vietnamese community, Nguyen says the only leader who can guide them through the difficult years ahead is Father Tran.

NGUYEN: It's up to the preacher. He's the one that pulls everybody together.

BURNETT: So it was with the large Vietnamese population in New Orleans East after Hurricane Katrina. Since then, almost all have returned and everybody's working again. After the storm, Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church was a central gathering¹⁶ place. And the priest emerged as a leader.

Mark Vanlaningham at Tulane University has studied the robust¹⁷ recovery of Vietnamese in New Orleans. He says the elders carry with them the immigrant experience from 1975.

MARK VANLANINGHAM: We're a group that's going to make it. We're a population that overcomes obstacles. And I think that self-concept played a really big role in making - kind of giving them a collective self-confidence, if you will, that they're going to make it through.

BURNETT: The Vietnamese community on the Texas coast may have this advantage as well but for the fact that their church has been destroyed. Father John Tran says they plan to rebuild St. Peter from the foundation. John Burnett, NPR News, Rockport.

(SOUNDBITE OF EMANCIPATOR'S "MERLION")

1 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。

2 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 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。

4 sanctuary   

n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区

参考例句：

• There was a sanctuary of political refugees behind the hospital.医院后面有一个政治难民的避难所。
• Most countries refuse to give sanctuary to people who hijack aeroplanes.大多数国家拒绝对劫机者提供庇护。

5 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

6 gaping   

adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大

参考例句：

• Ahead of them was a gaping abyss. 他们前面是一个巨大的深渊。
• The antelope could not escape the crocodile's gaping jaws. 那只羚羊无法从鱷鱼张开的大口中逃脱。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。

8 carving   

n.雕刻品，雕花

参考例句：

• All the furniture in the room had much carving.房间里所有的家具上都有许多雕刻。
• He acquired the craft of wood carving in his native town.他在老家学会了木雕手艺。

9 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

10 cohesion   

n.团结，凝结力

参考例句：

• I had to bring some cohesion into the company.我得使整个公司恢复凝聚力。
• The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality,creativity and cohesion of a nation. 文化的力量，深深熔铸在民族的生命力、创造力和凝聚力之中。

11 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

12 shrimp   

n.虾，小虾；矮小的人

参考例句：

• When the shrimp farm is built it will block the stream.一旦养虾场建起来，将会截断这条河流。
• When it comes to seafood,I like shrimp the best.说到海鲜，我最喜欢虾。

13 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。

14 nucleus   

n.核，核心，原子核

参考例句：

• These young people formed the nucleus of the club.这些年轻人成了俱乐部的核心。
• These councils would form the nucleus of a future regime.这些委员会将成为一个未来政权的核心。

15 salons   

n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅

参考例句：

• He used to attend to his literary salons. 他过去常常去参加他的文学沙龙。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Conspiracy theories about Jewish financiers were the talk of Paris salons. 犹太金融家阴谋论成为巴黎沙龙的话题。 来自互联网

16 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

17 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。