美国国家公共电台 NPR Authors Talk Politics: Junot Diaz On Election 2016

Authors Talk Politics: Junot Diaz On Election 2016

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0006:11repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser¹ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: 

Political pundits³ say this year's election is too close to call, according to the polls. And they point out that the polls have often been wrong anyway. So instead of a pundit², let's talk to a certified⁴ genius - at least, a MacArthur Fellows genius.

Junot Diaz, who's a professor of writing at MIT but is best known for books like "The Brief Wondrous⁵ Life Of Oscar Wao," which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and "This Is How You Lose Her" - Mr. Diaz joins us from MIT. Thanks so much for being with us.

JUNOT DIAZ: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: There are a lot of themes in this election year which have appeared in your books - race, immigration. What do you notice about this campaign?

DIAZ: Well, it's one of the strange things about being a literary artist - is that we're often called upon in our work to bear witness to the times that we're writing about. And, certainly, that sharpens one's lens.

And this election cycle certainly has brought out or made more explicit⁶ a lot of the - kind of the undercurrents of craziness in the American national character. We have a candidate on the Republican side that's more or less running on a nakedly nativistic and xenophobic and, you know, from my point of view, racist⁷ platform and has received a remarkable⁸ amount of support.

And then, you know, we have a candidate like Hillary Clinton, who, to put it charitably, does not excite a lot of the young people out there who brought all of that idealism into getting Obama elected.

SIMON: When politicians talk about issues that are of interest to Hispanic voters, it's often about immigration. Are they missing some other issues that are of interest to people who are in Hispanic neighborhoods and Hispanic families?

DIAZ: Well, you know, I mean, you couldn't think of a more diverse set of communities than the Latino community. I mean, we're from every region, every class, every race.

One of the things that's happened during this election is that the kind of drumbeat of demonization - the sort of conceptualizing or framing Latinos as explicitly⁹ immigrants and immigrants as an invasion threat - has sort of pushed to the margins¹⁰ all of the rich complexity¹¹ and the interests of the Latino community. I think people feel a profound, existential threat.

People feel very, very targeted by the Trump¹² campaign. And so I think, even in our own communities, folks who normally would never have sat at the same table, folks who normally wouldn't be in conversation with each other - or being, actually, drawn¹³ together by this impulse to fight back.

SIMON: At the same time, you've also been critical of President Obama's immigration policies, haven't you?

DIAZ: Well, I mean, my God, it's - if his administration deported¹⁴ any more folks, it'd be hard to imagine. You know, it's - we're a country that wants it both ways. We're a country whose livelihoods¹⁵, whose economic robustness¹⁶ is predicated on the underpaid and exploited labor¹⁷ of our immigrants, whether they're documented or not.

We're a country that's addicted¹⁸ to immigrant labor. If we withdrew immigrant labor from the economic and political system of this country, it would more or less collapse¹⁹. But we have a kind of set of politics that are very, very hostile to immigrants that, at best, erase²⁰ immigrants and, at worst, targets them as some sort of hostile and terrible group of people.

SIMON: You came to the United States from the Dominican Republic. And you've also been outspoken²¹ about being disappointed in the Dominican Republic's reaction to immigrants - Haitian immigrants we're talking about.

DIAZ: Yeah. Well, I mean, listen, attacking immigrants and demonizing immigrants is an ongoing²² global practice. What's going on, let's say, in the United States or the Dominican Republic - the top problems are not immigrants. For elites²³, immigrants are an exceptional tool of distraction²⁴. And in the Dominican Republic, it's no different.

SIMON: Mr. Diaz, a personal question - you going to vote?

DIAZ: Yeah, I vote all the time. I'm one of those people. I mean, you know, what really matters in our country is never up for election. It's never up for a vote, you know? But I always discharge my civic²⁵ duty. It's something that's been a part of my life for as long as I can vote, I guess.

SIMON: (Laughter) I don't have to do a psychological profile of you to judge that you don't sound very excited about it, though.

DIAZ: Well, because, I mean, firsthand, do we ever kind of get to vote on some of the aspects of our society that we really should be able to vote upon? You know, I would love a thumbs-up and thumbs-down about whether corporations should be given more protection and power than regular old human beings.

I would love a vote up and down - whether a regular Jane around the corner or Francisco should pay more taxes than a transnational corporation. And then, of course, you know, the candidates that we're voting for - I would not say that I feel an enormous sense of hope and possibility - just feels more like triage for me.

SIMON: Junot Diaz, the writer and professor, thanks so much for being with us.

DIAZ: Thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: And NPR is following the vice-presidential candidates as they prepare for their debate on Tuesday. You can hear live coverage²⁶ on many NPR stations, along with live fact-checking at npr.org.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 pundit   

n.博学之人；权威

参考例句：

• Even the outstanding excellent graduate will learn constantly if he likes to be a pundit.即使最优秀的结业生，要想成为一个博学的人也要不断地研究。
• He is a well known political pundit.他是一个著名的政治专家。

3 pundits   

n.某一学科的权威，专家( pundit的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The pundits disagree on the best way of dealing with the problem. 如何妥善处理这一问题，专家众说纷纭。 来自辞典例句
• That did not stop Chinese pundits from making a fuss over it. 这并没有阻止中国的博学之士对此大惊小怪。 来自互联网

4 certified   

a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的

参考例句：

• Doctors certified him as insane. 医生证明他精神失常。
• The planes were certified airworthy. 飞机被证明适于航行。

5 wondrous   

adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地

参考例句：

• The internal structure of the Department is wondrous to behold.看一下国务院的内部结构是很有意思的。
• We were driven across this wondrous vast land of lakes and forests.我们乘车穿越这片有着湖泊及森林的广袤而神奇的土地。

6 explicit   

adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的

参考例句：

• She was quite explicit about why she left.她对自己离去的原因直言不讳。
• He avoids the explicit answer to us.他避免给我们明确的回答。

7 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。

8 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

9 explicitly   

ad.明确地，显然地

参考例句：

• The plan does not explicitly endorse the private ownership of land. 该计划没有明确地支持土地私有制。
• SARA amended section 113 to provide explicitly for a right to contribution. 《最高基金修正与再授权法案》修正了第123条，清楚地规定了分配权。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

10 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

11 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。

12 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。

13 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

14 deported   

v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止

参考例句：

• They stripped me of my citizenship and deported me. 他们剥夺我的公民资格，将我驱逐出境。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The convicts were deported to a deserted island. 罪犯们被流放到一个荒岛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 livelihoods   

生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者，他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小，他们的传统生计受到了威胁。

16 robustness   

坚固性，健壮性；鲁棒性

参考例句：

• There were other reasons for concern about the robustness of an economic recovery. 人们还有其他一些原因对经济恢复的健全程度表示关心。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• Robustness analysis attracts more and more attention in these years. 鲁棒性分析是近几年学术界较为关注的问题。 来自互联网

17 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

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

18 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

19 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

20 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。

21 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。

22 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

23 elites   

精华( elite的名词复数 )； 精锐； 上层集团； （统称）掌权人物

参考例句：

• The elites are by their nature a factor contributing to underdevelopment. 这些上层人物天生是助长欠发达的因素。
• Elites always detest gifted and nimble outsiders. 社会名流对天赋聪明、多才多艺的局外人一向嫌恶。

24 distraction   

n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐

参考例句：

• Total concentration is required with no distractions.要全神贯注，不能有丝毫分神。
• Their national distraction is going to the disco.他们的全民消遣就是去蹦迪。

25 civic   

adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的

参考例句：

• I feel it is my civic duty to vote.我认为投票选举是我作为公民的义务。
• The civic leaders helped to forward the project.市政府领导者协助促进工程的进展。

26 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。