美国国家公共电台 NPR Starting School At The University That Enslaved Her Ancestors

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Let me introduce you to Melisande Short-Colomb. She's a freshman¹ at Georgetown University here in D.C.

MELISANDE SHORT-COLOMB: I have one class in African-American studies. I have a class in anthropology². I have a problem of God class, which is a core requirement.

KELLY: Short-Colomb stands apart from her classmates for a couple reasons. One, she is 63 years old, another is she is the descendant of slaves, slaves owned and then sold by Georgetown priests back in 1838. The university has granted legacy³ status to their descendants like Short-Colomb - part of an effort to atone⁴ for past wrongs.

Short-Colomb told me she had no idea about this piece of her history until she got a message on Facebook from a genealogist⁵ working to trace the connection between the university and her family.

SHORT-COLOMB: It was an oh-my-God moment because I'd read about the connection to families in Maringouin, La. and did not associate that with my own family, who was from Terrebonne and Lafourche Parish.

KELLY: And so the aha moment for you was you knew your family had been slaves. You did not know that they'd been sold and by who.

SHORT-COLOMB: I assumed they had been sold because they were slaves. I did not know by whom.

KELLY: And what did you make of that?

SHORT-COLOMB: I was sad. I was hurt. I was angry, which is something that I am all of the time for all of my life as a black American child born in 1954. What is happening here should not be a surprise. This isn't an aha moment. This is history. And this is a part of our American story that we don't talk about. It's the difficult conversation we refuse to have.

KELLY: And how, for you, is going and being a student? Walking that campus, how does that, in some way, start to set things right in your mind?

SHORT-COLOMB: I don't think my being there actually starts to set things right. That's really not what's happening here. And I don't think we should misunderstand that. I made an application and was accepted as a qualified⁶ individual to attend Georgetown University.

KELLY: You had to apply like anybody else.

SHORT-COLOMB: I had to apply like everybody else. I have student loans. I have scholarship. I have Pell Grant. I have work study. I have all of those things that go into being a student and being a somewhat disadvantaged student.

KELLY: What did your kids say? We should mention you're a mom.

SHORT-COLOMB: I am a mom. I have four adult children and two granddaughters.

KELLY: Oh, my goodness. So your kids must be older than the students you're...

SHORT-COLOMB: Yes.

KELLY: ...Dorming with now.

SHORT-COLOMB: My oldest daughter is 38.

KELLY: And what did they say when you said, I'm going to go back and give this college thing a shot?

SHORT-COLOMB: This is a mom move.

(LAUGHTER)

SHORT-COLOMB: This is a mom move. I used to tell them all the time when they were growing up, when you are adults, you're going to have to call one another to see where I am. I am not the hovering-helicopter, have-a-grandchild-so-I-can-have-something-to-do-with-my-life mom.

KELLY: No, that's pretty clear.

SHORT-COLOMB: I'm the mom who's got to work until she dies. So this is a typical thing for me to do.

KELLY: I wonder what you feel just walking around campus, looking at some of the beautiful buildings there knowing your ancestors helped build them and not out of their own free will.

SHORT-COLOMB: I feel good about it.

KELLY: Really?

SHORT-COLOMB: And I feel like I am the - we who are descendants on campus now, there are three of us on campus. And I feel like we are the dreams of our ancestors realized. We are prayers that are answered. We are 180 years in the future of people who were terrified on some days in 1838 when their lives were dramatically changed. And it's taken that long for us to talk about it.

KELLY: That's a beautiful way to see it. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

SHORT-COLOMB: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

KELLY: That's Melisande Short-Colomb. She is descended⁷ from slaves owned and sold by the Jesuit priests at Georgetown. And now she's enrolled⁸ there as a college freshman.

1 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

2 anthropology   

n.人类学

参考例句：

• I believe he has started reading up anthropology.我相信他已开始深入研究人类学。
• Social anthropology is centrally concerned with the diversity of culture.社会人类学主要关于文化多样性。

3 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

4 atone   

v.赎罪，补偿

参考例句：

• He promised to atone for his crime.他承诺要赎自己的罪。
• Blood must atone for blood.血债要用血来还。

5 genealogist   

系谱学者

参考例句：

• Misha Defonseca acknowledged her bestselling Holocaust story as a fake after a genealogist outed her. MishaDefonseca在当一位系谱学者揭露她之后承认自己关于二战犹太大屠杀的畅销书是捏造的。

6 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

7 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

8 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》