VOA慢速英语2016--年轻难民在足球场上了解美国

AS IT IS 2016-01-26 Young Refugees² Learn About US on the Soccer Field 年轻难民在足球场上了解美国

Young refugees in the United States are learning³ about each other and their new country on the soccer field.

One player is 13-year-old Win La Bar. His family is from Myanmar, also known as Burma. Win was born in Thailand after his family fled their Burmese homeland.

Win is one of about 200 refugee¹ children who play at the North Phoenix⁴ Christian⁵ Soccer Club, in the western state of Arizona. The players in the club’s 12 teams are between 6 and 18 years old.

Win lives with 10 family members. They share two apartments. Win has his own bedroom, but his sister sleeps in a room with her three young children. Win’s parents and three other children live in another apartment that has two bedrooms.

He says he loves his new home because “I’ve got a better chance to get a better education, and (I) get to play more soccer without worrying about gunshots.” He says he does not want to have a difficult life like his parents have had.

The soccer club has helped him make friends and learn about his new home. His coaches have taught his family about life in the United States.

He says it was “very different, very hard to adapt into this world. It’s hard to understand,” he says, because he had never seen cars or planes. “It’s very different from where I used to live.”

Win says he does not remember how he learned⁶ English. He says one of the coaches has helped him and his younger brothers since the family arrived in Phoenix. He says he is a good student.

Alondra Ruiz works⁷ for the soccer club. She brings the players to games and drives them home. Sometimes she drives for hours a day, and hundreds of kilometers a week.

She says during the rides the students ask her many questions about the United States. “I get the opportunity to teach kids things that maybe their parents can’t answer,” she says.

Ruiz says she tells them “you’re not different. You’re here. And you can become anything you want.”

“Being part of this club, and keeping kids busy is very rewarding to me because it’s good for them, and it’s good for the future,” she says.

“I listen a lot when I’m driving,” she says. “What I hear often is that they’re being treated different at school, that they’re not being accepted. I relate to that 100 percent. I wasn’t accepted coming from Mexico.”

Ruiz was an immigrant⁸ child. She grew up in the Southwest United States.

Ruiz is married, and her two children are adults. She is not in the United States legally. Her husband also came to the United States from Mexico as a child. He has permission to work in the U.S. He cares for plants and trees at a college.

More than 70,000 refugees from many countries have been resettled in Arizona in the past 10 years. The U.S. State Department says more than 33,000 refugees have begun new lives in Arizona since 2002. Only Texas, California, New York, Minnesota, Florida and Washington have accepted more refugees than Arizona.

In the past year, refugees from 13 countries have moved to Arizona. There are players from at least 12 countries in the soccer club this year. And Alondra Ruiz says the club has had players from at least 24 countries.

Zara Doukoum knows what the other refugee students have dealt with, including when people did not understand what they were saying when they were just learning to speak English.

“Every refugee in America went through that,” she says.

This year she will graduate from Central High School, the public school attended by most of her teammates. It will be four years since she arrived in Phoenix with her mother and three sisters. Her father died seven years ago.

She wants to attend college. She may play soccer or tennis.

“If that doesn’t work for me, I see myself just helping⁹ around, giving back to the community the way people gave to me,” she says.

Dina Berman is a professor at the University of Miami. She researches child refugee education and writes for the Migration¹⁰ Policy Institute. She says putting refugee children in schools is difficult because they may not have the same level of education as children their age in the U.S.

Win La Bar said he had a difficult time when he started school in the United States. He says people did not understand him.

“When I (went) to school and I (met) new people, (at first), they (didn’t) really have respect for me,” he says. “But as they (got) to know me, they (had) a better feeling for me, and became, like, good to me.”

Words in This Story

settle – v. to move to a place and make it your home

adapt – v. to change your behavior so that it is easier to live in a particular place or situation

resettle – v. to begin to live in a new area after leaving an old one; to settle again

1 refugee   

n.难民，流亡者

参考例句：

• The refugee was condemned to a life of wandering.这个难民注定要过流浪的生活。
• The refugee is suffering for want of food and medical supplies.难民苦于缺少食物和医药用品。

2 refugees   

n.避难者，难民( refugee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The UN has begun making airdrops of food to refugees. 联合国已开始向难民空投食物。
• They claimed they were political refugees and not economic migrants. 他们宣称自己是政治难民，不是经济移民。

3 learning   

n.学问，学识，学习；动词learn的现在分词

参考例句：

• When you are learning to ride a bicycle,you often fall off.初学骑自行车时，常会从车上掉下来。
• Learning languages isn't just a matter of remembering words.学习语言不仅仅是记些单词的事。

4 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

5 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

6 learned   

adj.有学问的，博学的；learn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He went into a rage when he learned about it.他听到这事后勃然大怒。
• In this little village,he passed for a learned man.在这个小村子里，他被视为有学问的人。

7 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

8 immigrant   

adj.(从国外)移来的，移民的；n.移民，侨民

参考例句：

• Life in the USA was very hard for almost every new immigrant.美国的生活几乎对每一个新移民都很艰难。
• I'd like to obtain some information about applying for an immigrant visa.我想取一些申请移民签证的资料。

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 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。