VOA慢速英语--美国人在家庭分离政策上存分歧

US Has Separated Families Throughout History

Many Americans are expressing shock at the Trump¹ administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the United States’ border with Mexico.

But throughout U.S. history, officials have taken such action. Here are some examples:

Slavery

Slave families were often separated in sale. Slave owners could sell slave children to anyone. Their parents had no legal rights to prevent their sale and could do little to stop them.

Some slave families attempted to escape. But all faced severe punishment, even death, if captured.

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions used the Christian² holy book, the Bible, to defend the policy of forced separation.

He said, “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained⁴ them for the purpose of order.”

That same passage was cited before the Civil War as a defense⁵ for separating slave children from their mothers.

Native American boarding schools

In the 1870s, the United States began a policy of forcible assimilation for Native Americans. The government ordered the removal of Native American children from their families and reservations. They were sent to boarding schools that many described as similar to prisons. The schools were established with the goal destroying all Indian tradition and nature within the child.

At about 150 Indian schools around the country, officials made Native American children cut their traditional long hair and banned them from speaking in their native language. The schools forced the children to accept Christianity and white customs.

Native American children returned home almost unrecognizable to their parents. Still, some children resisted by setting fires to buildings, running away or taking their own lives.

Others continued to speak their native language in secret. Some Navajo “code talkers” were students at the boarding schools as children. During World War II, they used a code based on their native language to send secret messages for the U.S. military. Indian boarding school policies remained in place through the 1960s.

Poverty

During the early 1900s, American states sometimes took children from poor families and placed them in orphanages⁷.

Author Michael Katz wrote in his book “In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History Of Welfare In America” that this practice ended in the 1920s and 1930s.

However, Katz said, local and state officials continued to use poverty as a reason to take children away from Native American and African American families. Sometimes the ordered separation came over concerns about a parent’s mental health.

The late civil rights activist⁸ Malcolm X described his experience of such treatment in a book about his life. He wrote that government workers took him and his siblings¹⁰ from his mother after the murder of their father.

He said he lived in several foster homes and boarding houses. He said his mother, without her children, had a psychological breakdown¹¹ and was ordered to a mental health asylum¹².

Great Depression repatriation¹³

During the Great Depression, California and Texas officials blamed Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans for the economic event. They forced between 500,000 and 1 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans to leave the U.S.

Francisco Balderrama co-wrote “Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s.” He said some families hid children with family members in the U.S. to prevent them from being sent from the country.

Many families felt they were being forced to separate from their children, who were U.S. citizens. “And many children,” Balderrama said, “never saw their parents again.”

Japanese internment¹⁴ camp

Former U.S. first lady Laura Bush criticized the current family separation policy in an opinion piece published by The Washington Post newspaper.

She compared the images of children in tent cities in the desert outside El Paso, Texas, to those in “internment camps for U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II.”

In 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an order forcing around 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry¹⁵ into internment camps around the country, including 30,000 children.

George Takei is an American actor who was sent to an internment camp at the age of five.

Takei wrote in Foreign Policy, “At least during the internment of Japanese-Americans, I and other children were not stripped from our parents. We were not pulled screaming from our mothers’ arms. We were not left to change the diapers of younger children by ourselves.”

I’m Jonathan Evans. And I’m Ashley Thompson.

Words in This Story

cite - v. to write or say the words from a book, an author, etc.

ordain³ - v. to officially establish or order

assimilation - n. an action to cause a person or group to become part of a different society, country

code - n. a set of letters, numbers, symbols used to secretly send messages

orphanage⁶ - n. a place where children without parents can live and be cared for

practice - n. something that is done often or regularly

sibling⁹ - n. a brother or sister

foster - adj. used to describe a situation in which a child is cared for by someone other than his parents

psychological - adj. of or relating to the mind

strip - v. to remove

scream - v. to cry loudly because of pain or surprise

diaper - n. a piece of clothe or material fastened around a baby to hold body waste

1 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。

2 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。

3 ordain   

vi.颁发命令；vt.命令，授以圣职，注定，任命

参考例句：

• The church's ruling body voted to ordain women as priests.该教会的管理机构投票通过接纳女性为牧师。
• The essence of management refers to its internal inevitable ordain quality,and is also called ultimate attribute.管理的本质是指管理自身内在的必然的规定性，即根本属性。

4 ordained   

v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定

参考例句：

• He was ordained in 1984. 他在一九八四年被任命为牧师。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He was ordained priest. 他被任命为牧师。 来自辞典例句

5 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

6 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

7 orphanages   

孤儿院( orphanage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It is Rotarians running orphanages for children who have no homes. 扶轮社员们为没有家的孩子办孤儿院。
• Through the years, she built churches, hospitals and orphanages. 许多年来，她盖了一间间的教堂、医院、育幼院。

8 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

9 sibling   

n.同胞手足(指兄、弟、姐或妹)

参考例句：

• Many of us hate living in the shadows of a more successful sibling.我们很多人都讨厌活在更为成功的手足的阴影下。
• Sibling ravalry has been common in this family.这个家里，兄弟姊妹之间的矛盾很平常。

10 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

11 breakdown   

n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌

参考例句：

• She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
• The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障，但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。

12 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

13 repatriation   

n.遣送回国，归国

参考例句：

• The Volrep programme is the preferred means of repatriation. 政府认为自愿遣返计划的遣返方法较为可取。 来自互联网
• Arrange the cargo claiming and maritime affairs,crews repatriation,medical treatment,traveling so on. （六）洽办货物理赔，船舶海事处理，办理船员遣返，就医，旅游等。 来自互联网

14 internment   

n.拘留

参考例句：

• Certainly the recent attacks against the internment camps are evidence enough. 很明显，最近营地遭受到的攻击就是一个足好的证明。 来自互联网
• The chapters on the internment are Both readaBle and well researched. 这些关于拘留的章节不仅具可读性而且研究得很透彻。 来自互联网

15 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。