文/泰德·威德默 譯/馬若星 審訂/仲文明
一個(gè)叫特朗普的移民
文/泰德·威德默 譯/馬若星 審訂/仲文明
Like millions of immigrants, Friedrich Trump disembarked1disembark下(車、船、飛機(jī)等)。at Castle Garden2一座位于美國(guó)紐約曼哈頓島南端的圓形砂巖要塞,曾是美國(guó)的第一座移民站。, in New York, and made his way in a crowded,polyglot3polyglot通曉(或使用)多種語(yǔ)言的;多種語(yǔ)言混合組成的。, grossly4grossly非常;極度地。unequal city.
弗里德里希·特朗普
On October 19, 1885, the S.S. Eider approached Sandy Hook, New Jersey, and the Narrows, twelve days after it had departed Bremen, Germany. As the four-hundred-and-thirty-foot vessel navigated through New York Harbor, it would have passed Bedloe’s Island, on the port side, where an enormous pedestal55 pedestal(雕像等的)基座。was under construction. The Statue of Liberty was nearby, in crates66 crate大木箱,板條箱(運(yùn)貨用)。, not yet assembled. Like so much of America,she was a work in progress.
[2] On deck, a sixteen-year-old boy was carrying the hopes of his family,back home in Germany. The Drumpfs had long before simpli fi ed their name to Trump, and they were shedding the super fl uities7superfluity多余;過剩。of Europe in other ways, too.Friedrich, the young man on board, had trained as a barber’s apprentice, but saw little reason to stay in the small town of Kallstadt, in the Palatinate8指德國(guó)萊茵-普法爾茨州(Rhineland-Palatinate)的一個(gè)地區(qū),歷史上是一個(gè)著名的行宮伯爵領(lǐng)地,1815至1918年間曾歸屬于巴伐利亞王國(guó)。行宮伯爵(count palatine)是負(fù)責(zé)駐守和管理行宮的領(lǐng)主,palatine一詞在德語(yǔ)中對(duì)應(yīng)的是pfalz(行宮),為了方便指稱,一般把這個(gè)領(lǐng)地音譯為“普法爾茨”。, where his prospects were limited. He harbored higher aspirations.
[3] For Trump, as for most immigrants to New York at the time, the point where he would disembark was Castle Garden, at the foot of Manhattan. Castle Garden was neither a castle nor a garden but an old fort. Its original purpose was to repulse9repulse擊退。the British, who appeared likely to invade again. But,as the city grew, priorities shifted, developers sniffed around10sniff around四處打探。, and suddenly the old fort was welcoming foreigners instead of defending against them. Castle Garden was repurposed11repurpose(為適合新用途)對(duì)……稍加修改。as a beer garden, a musical theatre, and, finally,as the Emigrant Landing Depot, where immigrants were processed by the State of New York before they would begin new lives.
[4] From 1820 to 1892, eleven mil-lion new arrivals, today the ancestors of an estimated hundred million Americans, came through this multi-purpose structure, America’s first immigration facility. The building, renamed Castle Clinton, still stands near the boats that take tourists toward the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The babel12babel嘈雜聲(尤指講多種語(yǔ)言)。該詞源于《圣經(jīng)》,指古巴比倫人建筑未成的通天塔〔見《圣經(jīng)·創(chuàng)世記》〕。of foreign languages spoken by tourists visiting it bears a rough sonic13sonic聲音的。similarity to those around Castle Garden in 1885.In German/Yiddish slang,kesselgartenbecame a word to describe a chaotic situation with a lot of people speaking at once.
[5] Friedrich presumably met his sister Katherine, who had come to America before him, and was married to a clerk named Friedrich Schuster. She would have known about the Eider’s approach from the telegraph wires already stretching under the Atlantic, and the reports of shipping that made up the back sections of newspapers.
[6] The next day’sTimesoffered a“very superior extra size mansion,” on Murray Hill. It was an era of extreme inequality. Before there was an income tax, there was little reason to conceal wealth. Cornelius Vanderbilt II was living in the largest private residence ever seen in Manhattan, a chateau14chateau(法國(guó)封建時(shí)代的)城堡;(尤指法國(guó)的)別墅。built as if it sat alongside the Loire, instead of Fifth Avenue. It held a hundred and thirty rooms, including a Moorish15Moorish摩爾式建筑的。smoking room, and took up an entire block at Fifth and Fifty-seventh.
[7] Trump’s sister lived in a very different New York from the Vanderbilts’.According to Gwenda Blair’s 2001 book, “The Trumps,” Friedrich moved in with Katherine and Fred Schuster, at 76 Forsyth Street, in what is now Chinatown, a modest structure that is the first of all the Trump Palaces, Parcs16parc〈法語(yǔ)〉大花園,公園。,Plazas, Casinos, Hotels, and other edifi ces17edifice大廈;宏偉建筑。to follow.
[8] In 1885, the same year that Friedrich Trump arrived, another immigrant who had entered New York through Castle Garden, in June, 1870,was wandering the same streets. The son of a Danish schoolteacher, Jacob Riis18(1849—1914),丹麥裔美國(guó)籍新聞?dòng)浾摺⑸鐣?huì)改革家、攝影家,1890年出版的《另一半人怎樣生活》(How the Other Half Lives)如實(shí)描繪了貧民窟,震撼了美國(guó)人的良知,并促使美國(guó)通過了第一個(gè)改進(jìn)貧民窟生活條件的法案。在攝影方面,他被認(rèn)為是在攝影中運(yùn)用閃光燈技術(shù)的先驅(qū)之一。was on his way to fi nding his own method of exposing overcrowding. In a couple of years, he would discover a new technique of using magnesium to create fl ashes of light for photographic purposes, making it possible to give the public a glimpse of the dark basements that slum dwellers crowded into.
[9] What comes through in all of his photographs was the sheer19sheer(用來強(qiáng)調(diào)事物的大小、程度或數(shù)量)十足的;全然的。density of humanity packed into these structures.When one contemplates the numbing20numbing使麻木的。grandiosity of the modern Trump structures, with their massive square footage,their high ceilings, their mirrors to make everything seem even larger, it is almost as if there is a vestigial21vestigial殘留的。memory of a time when the Lower East Side22下東區(qū),紐約最早移民和工人階級(jí)密集居住的區(qū)域,位于東村(East Village)以南,金融街以北。was the most crowded place on the planet.
[10] A year after Friedrich’s arrival,in 1886, Forsyth Street saw the opening of the Neighborhood Guild, a new kind of “settlement house” designed to ease the passage of new immigrants into a crowded country. As new waves of immigrants followed, the little street adapted. After the pogroms23pogrom〈俄〉(有組織的)大屠殺;集體迫害(尤指帝俄時(shí)代對(duì)猶太人的大屠殺)。in Russia,the Lower East Side became a Jewish neighborhood, nestled inside the footprint of Kleindeutschland244 19世紀(jì)中晚期曼哈頓下東區(qū)的一個(gè)德國(guó)移民聚居區(qū)。. Old churches became new synagogues25synagogue猶太教會(huì)堂。;new mutual-aid societies replaced the old ones, and everyday life continued,much as it had before.
[11] Today, the building Friedrich once lived in on Forsyth Street houses a tiny Japanese restaurant on the first floor, and a series of apartments above.The basement stairs lead to the Fujianese
American Eldridge Activity Center—a lengthy name for a place where men play mah-jongg. Next door, at 74B Forsyth Street, is the Golden Bird Barbershop, whose spinning pole conjures26conjure使……變戲法般地出現(xiàn)(或消失);想象出。memories of Friedrich’s original profession.
[12] In 1891, Friedrich was off to Washington State before going to the Klondike regions, where he pursued a colorful career providing food, liquor,and women to miners—a period that is well-documented by Gwenda Blair.He came back to New York enriched,a decade later, and continued to move around, trying the Bronx before settling in the Woodhaven section of Queens,where the Trump empire put down deeper roots than it had in Manhattan,and where his grandson, now President of the United States, was raised. He died in 1918, on the eve of a Memorial Day parade, likely one of the many victims of the Spanish- fl u epidemic.
[13] Those early years of struggle had proved to be seminal27seminal(對(duì)以后的發(fā)展)影響深遠(yuǎn)的。in the life of a teenage immigrant, and of the dynasty he went on to found. New York had not exactly welcomed him with open arms,but it had not turned him away, either.
[14] Americans did not speak with one mind about the waves of refugees and other kinds of immigrants arriving every year. A series of legislative acts were passed by Congress in the eighteen-eighties, restricting immigrants from Asia, taxing those from Europe,and creating the need for a stronger bureaucracy to handle the great infusion28infusion注入。.At the same time, the great spaces of America cried out for29cry out for急需。more citizens,and they came to answer the call.
[15] It is impossible to know what the passengers on the Eider thought of the giant pedestal on Bedloe’s Island, as the ship steamed toward Castle Garden in October, 1885. Possibly, the un fi nished landmark struck them as30struck sb as讓某人覺得。the perfect symbol already—a foundation to build upon. Well below the giant pedestal upon which the Statue of Liberty would come to stand, there is an even older eleven-pointed fortification31fortification堡壘;防御工事。, built when New Yorkers feared a foreign invasion. In other words, the complex sends a mixed message—a welcoming statue atop an old fort designed to repel foreign invaders. The paradoxes will endure as long as Americans insist on building the biggest houses, and the highest walls, and proclaim themselves to be the greatest winners in the history of Earth, without expecting the world’s billions to try very hard to join us in ourkesselgarten. ■
與數(shù)百萬移民一樣,弗里德里希·特朗普在紐約的花園城堡上岸,踏入這個(gè)擁擠不堪、多語(yǔ)種混雜、貧富分化嚴(yán)重的城市。
1885年10月19日,也就是從德國(guó)不來梅啟程12天之后,S.S.艾德號(hào)先后抵達(dá)新澤西州的桑迪胡克和紐約灣海峽。這艘長(zhǎng)達(dá)430英尺的輪船穿過紐約港,駛經(jīng)港口一側(cè)的貝德羅島,那里正在修建一個(gè)巨大的基座。自由女神像的部件就放置在不遠(yuǎn)的大木箱中,還未開始組裝。此時(shí)大半個(gè)美國(guó)如自由女神像一樣,也是百?gòu)U待興。
[2]一個(gè)16歲的男孩站在甲板上,身上背負(fù)著遠(yuǎn)在德國(guó)的家人的厚望。很久以前,他所在的德魯姆夫家族就把自己的姓氏簡(jiǎn)化為特朗普,同時(shí)還通過其他方式擺脫歐洲的繁縟。船上的這個(gè)年輕人就是弗里德里希,在理發(fā)店當(dāng)學(xué)徒,但他不愿意留在普法爾茨的卡爾斯塔特小鎮(zhèn)上,那兒沒什么前途,而他卻有更高的追求。
[3]特朗普和當(dāng)時(shí)前往紐約的大多數(shù)移民一樣,下船的地點(diǎn)是曼哈頓的花園城堡?;▓@城堡既不是城堡,也不是花園,而是一座古堡壘。修建堡壘的初衷是為了抵御英國(guó)人進(jìn)攻,因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)英國(guó)人有可能再度入侵。但隨著城市不斷擴(kuò)張,發(fā)展重心轉(zhuǎn)移,開發(fā)商四處尋覓商機(jī),轉(zhuǎn)眼間,古堡不再防御外國(guó)人,反而敞開雙臂歡迎他們?;▓@城堡被改造成啤酒廣場(chǎng)和音樂劇院,并最終演變?yōu)橐泼竦顷懻?。移民都要先在這里辦理紐約州政府的相關(guān)手續(xù)才能開始他們的新生活。
[4] 1820年至1892年間,1100萬新移民,也就是如今約一億美國(guó)人的祖先,通過美國(guó)首個(gè)移民管理設(shè)施——花園城堡這一多功能建筑,進(jìn)入了美國(guó)。該建筑后來更名為克林頓城堡,如今仍矗立在運(yùn)載游客前往自由女神像和埃利斯島的船只附近。前來參觀的游客語(yǔ)言各異,這一情形與1885年大致相仿。在德語(yǔ)或意第緒語(yǔ)的俚語(yǔ)里,kesselgarten一詞用來形容許多人同時(shí)說話混亂嘈雜的情形。
[5]弗里德里希的姐姐凱瑟琳比他先來美國(guó),嫁給了一位叫弗里德里希·舒斯特的文員。弗里德里希應(yīng)該先與她會(huì)了面。那時(shí)電報(bào)線已經(jīng)鋪設(shè)到大西洋底,凱瑟琳可能通過電報(bào)和報(bào)紙后幾版刊登的航運(yùn)信息得知艾德號(hào)抵達(dá)的消息。
[6]第二天的《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》刊登了一則廣告,推銷“默里山超大豪宅”。那是個(gè)極端不平等的時(shí)代。當(dāng)時(shí)還沒有收入所得稅,也就沒有必要藏富??颇崂蛩埂し兜卤葼柼囟谰妥≡诼D最大的私人住宅里,那不像是第五大道上的別墅,倒像是坐落在盧瓦爾河畔的一座法式城堡。它占據(jù)了第五大道和57街的整個(gè)街區(qū),有130個(gè)房間,其中包括一間摩爾式建筑風(fēng)格的吸煙室。
[7]特朗普的姐姐在紐約的住處和范德比爾特的住所相差甚遠(yuǎn)。據(jù)格溫達(dá)·布萊爾在其2001年著作《特朗普一家》中的記載,弗里德里希搬到了福賽斯街76號(hào)(現(xiàn)在唐人街的位置)凱瑟琳和弗雷德·舒斯特夫婦的住所。那所房子不過是座普通的建筑,卻成了以后特朗普宮殿、特朗普廣場(chǎng)、特朗普賭場(chǎng)、特朗普酒店等所有這一切的發(fā)端。
[8] 1885年,也就是弗里德里?!ぬ乩势盏竭_(dá)美國(guó)的那一年,另一位移民在同一個(gè)街區(qū)徘徊。他叫雅各布·里斯,是一名丹麥教師的兒子,在1870年6月通過花園城堡進(jìn)入了紐約。當(dāng)時(shí)他正在想方設(shè)法向外界展示人滿為患的貧民窟。幾年后,他發(fā)現(xiàn)了鎂光燈技術(shù),讓公眾得以看到貧民蝸居的地下室有多么擁擠黑暗。
[9]雅各布的所有照片都體現(xiàn)了這些建筑里人口之密集?,F(xiàn)代特朗普建筑,占地面積廣,樓層高,加之有放大效果的鏡子,讓人恍惚間會(huì)忘記下東區(qū)曾是地球上最為擁擠的地方。
[10] 1886年,也就是弗里德里希到美國(guó)的第二年,睦鄰公會(huì)在福賽斯街創(chuàng)立。這是為新移民建的“安置房”,旨在緩解大量新移民涌入擁擠城市的壓力。隨著新移民潮的到來,這條小街道也發(fā)生了變化。俄羅斯大屠殺后,下東區(qū)成了猶太人聚居地,坐落在原來的小德意志區(qū)范圍內(nèi)?;浇烫靡惨虼俗兂闪霜q太教堂;老式協(xié)會(huì)由新型互助協(xié)會(huì)取而代之,日常生活仍同往常一樣,周而復(fù)始。
[11]如今,福賽斯街上弗里德里希昔日住所的一樓是一家小型日本餐廳,樓上則是公寓。地下室是美國(guó)福建同鄉(xiāng)埃爾德里奇活動(dòng)中心,名字冗長(zhǎng),其實(shí)是玩麻將的地方。隔壁福賽斯街74B號(hào)是黃金鳥理發(fā)店,門口的旋轉(zhuǎn)燈箱會(huì)讓人想起弗里德里希最初的職業(yè)。
[12] 1891年,弗里德里希前往華盛頓州,之后又去了克朗代克地區(qū),在那里他開始了豐富多彩的職業(yè)生涯——向礦工售賣食物、酒水和女人。格溫達(dá)·布萊爾對(duì)此進(jìn)行了詳細(xì)的記錄。十年后,他賺得盆滿缽滿回到了紐約,之后又繼續(xù)四處漂泊,先在布朗克斯區(qū)暫住,最后在皇后區(qū)的伍德黑文定居下來。在這里他為特朗普帝國(guó)打下比在曼哈頓時(shí)更深厚的根基。他的孫子,即現(xiàn)在的美國(guó)總統(tǒng),也正是在這里長(zhǎng)大。1918年紀(jì)念日游行前夕,弗里德里希去世,疑似感染了西班牙流感。
[13]事實(shí)證明,早年的艱苦奮斗對(duì)一名少年移民意義重大,而且對(duì)他日后建造的商業(yè)帝國(guó)也至關(guān)重要。紐約雖沒有張開雙臂熱烈歡迎他,卻也不曾將其拒之門外。
[14]每年美國(guó)都會(huì)涌現(xiàn)難民潮和移民潮,對(duì)這種現(xiàn)象美國(guó)人也是各持己見。19世紀(jì)80年代,國(guó)會(huì)通過一系列法案限制亞洲移民,對(duì)歐洲移民征稅,因此也需要更龐大的官僚體制來處理這種大型移民輸入。但與此同時(shí),美國(guó)廣袤的國(guó)土又急需更多居民入住,移民便回應(yīng)這種需求,隨之涌來。
[15] 1885年10月,艾德號(hào)駛向花園城堡時(shí),對(duì)于貝德羅島上的那個(gè)巨大基座,船上的乘客作何感想,我們不得而知。也許在他們看來,這一未完成的地標(biāo)已經(jīng)是一個(gè)完美的象征——新生活的基石。而在即將矗立起自由女神像的巨大基座之下,有一座更古老的防御工事,同樣是十一邊形,是當(dāng)時(shí)紐約人擔(dān)心外國(guó)人入侵而建立的。也就是說,一座迎客雕像,卻坐落在抵御外敵的古老堡壘上,傳達(dá)的信息十分矛盾。只要美國(guó)人仍然堅(jiān)持要建最大的房子,筑最高的圍墻,堅(jiān)稱自己是史上世界最大贏家,又不想讓地球上數(shù)十億人民盡一切努力加入我們的“花園城堡”,那這樣的悖論就會(huì)一直延續(xù)。 □
An Immigrant Named Trump
ByTed Widmer
(譯者單位:中南大學(xué)外國(guó)語(yǔ)學(xué)院)