希拉里败选后首次公开演讲【下】
当地时间11月16日，美国前国务卿希拉里在儿童保护基金会活动上发表演讲，这是她发表败选演说后首次在公开场合演讲。
演讲内容上半部分见：希拉里败选后首次公开演讲【上】，下文为演讲内容下半部分，音频视频下载地址、在线收听地址见文末。
Hillary Clinton's First Speech Since Conceding
(Part 2)
Let’s be clear, when I talk about children in or near poverty, this isn’t someone else’s problem. These aren’t someone else’s children. This is America’s problem because they are America’s children. Child poverty isn’t just an urban challenge or a black or Latino challenge, although children of color continue to suffer disproportionately[不相称地] from high rates of poverty, but make no mistake, there are poor children of every race and ethnicity.
Three out of every 10 white children in America are at or near poverty. That is more than 11 million kids. When you add in 11 million Latino children, more than 6 million black children, a million and a half Asian and American-Indian children, nearly 2 million children of two or more races, the scope and scale of this challenge becomes clear.
Poor children live in every state and every congressional district, so they deserve the attention and efforts of every one of our representatives and leaders. And the measure of success must be: how many children and families climb out of poverty and reach the middle class?
We know what works to support kids and give them opportunities to succeed. Parents need good-paying jobs, affordable quality health care and childcare, to have help balancing the demands of work and family. Communities need investments that lift families up, not neglect that lets them fall further behind.
There are millions of children who will go to school tomorrow in classrooms with crumbling ceilings[摇摇欲坠的天花板], empty bookshelves and walls covered with mold[霉;霉菌]. There are children in places like Flint[弗林特], Michigan[密歇根州], drinking water poisoned by lead[铅]. And children all over our country face the daily danger of gun violence. We have to ask ourselves, what are we doing to give them the safe and healthy lives they deserve?
There are also children who are afraid today, like the little girl I met in Nevada[内华达州] who started to cry when she told me how scared she was that her parents would be taken away from her and be deported. No child should have to live with fear like that. No child should be afraid to go to school because they are Latino or African-American or Muslim or because they have a disability. We should protect our children and help them love themselves and love others. [applause]
So there is a lot of work to do as long as any child in America lives in poverty, as long as any child in America lives in fear, as long as any child—not just here but in the world—faces these challenges, there is work to do. Girls as well as boys in every country on every continent deserve that chance to fulfill their own potential. And it is going to take all of us doing our part.
I wrote a book 20 years ago called It Takes a Village. And a lot of people asked, what the heck do you mean by that? I meant what CDF[Children’s Defense Fund] has represented and understood from the beginning: None of us can raise a family, build a business, heal a community or lift a country by ourselves. We have to do it together. [applause]
So I urge you—I urge you, please, don’t lose heart. Don’t give up on the values we share. Look at the young people we are honoring tonight. If they can persevere, so must all of us, and if Marian has taught us anything, it’s there are so many ways to make a difference. Organizations like CDF have never been more important.
Businesses, philanthropists[慈善家], foundations, congregations[(特指宗教的)集会;会众,听众] of every faith have to step up too because there is work to be done in every community, debates to be joined in city halls[市政厅] and state capitols[州议会大厦/会堂], and even if it may not seem like it right now, there is common ground to build on.
A lot of governors and legislators and mayors are pioneering new ways to support parents and provide children with early learning in red states as well as blue states[1]. Many of our most important accomplishments for the wellbeing of children and families have come from both parties working together like the Children’s Health Insurance Program. That could never have happened without Republican leaders. Now it covers eight million kids, and even in this presidential campaign, for the first time ever, a broad consensus emerged about the importance of affordable quality childcare and paid family leave. [applause]
[1]红州与蓝州是指美国近年来选举得票数分布的倾向。红州较支持共和党，蓝州则较支持民主党。
So we have work to do, and for the sake of our children and our families and our country, I ask you to stay engaged, stay engaged on every level. We need you. America needs you. Your energy, your ambition, your talent. That’s how we get through this. That’s how we help to make our contributions to bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. (LR注:与【上】中提到的“The arc of the moral universe is long but it tends toward justice.”呼应)
I know this isn’t easy, I know that over the past week, a lot of people have asked themselves whether America is the country we thought it was. The divisions laid bare[暴露;揭露] by this election run deep, but please listen to me when I say this. America is worth it. Our children are worth it.
Believe in our country, fight for our values and never, ever give up because over the past two years, I have met so many people who reaffirmed my faith in our country, all kinds of people—young people starting businesses, people working in every way they could to make the world a better place, police officers who put their lives on the line, members of communities who work with the police to try to keep everybody safe, immigrants who worked so hard to become citizens and so many people who work long hours caring for children and the elderly, even when the pay is not enough to support their own families.
I met and had the chance to work and travel with mothers who lost children and turned around and started a movement for peace and justice. A pastor[牧师] in South Carolina who shared his bible[圣经] with me open to First Corinthians[哥林多前书]. Love never fails, it tells us, and I believe that.
Way back when I was in college, and I gave the commencement speech[毕业典礼演讲], I said to my classmates then that our goal should be to make what appears to be impossible possible. I may be older now, a mother and a grandmother. I have seen my share of ups and downs, but I still believe that we can make the impossible possible. [applause] I will hope that the stories of the people we’re honoring tonight, Marian’s story, all that she’s achieved—the Children’s Defense Fund has often made the impossible possible.
And then finally, as some of you heard me say during the campaign, I draw hope and sustenance from another person who influenced my life and still does every day, my mother.
I have talked about her difficult childhood. She was abandoned by her parents when she was just 8 years old. They put her on a train to California all by herself in charge of her little sister, who was three years younger. She ended up in California, where she was mistreated[虐待] by her grandparents, ended up on her own, working as a housemaid[女佣]. She beat the odds.
She found a way to offer me the boundless love and support she never received herself. I think about her every day and sometimes I think about her on that train. I wish I could walk down the aisle and find the little wooden seat where she sat, holding tight to her younger sister, all alone and terrified.
She doesn’t yet know how much more she will have to face and even suffer. She doesn’t yet know she will find the strength to escape that suffering. That’s still years off. Her whole future is unknown, as it is for all of us, as she stares out at the vast country moving past her.
And I dream of going up to her and sitting next to her and taking her in my arms and saying, "Look, look at me and listen. You will survive, you will have a family of your own, three children, and as hard as it might be to imagine, your daughter will grow up to be a United States Senator, represent our country as Secretary of State and win more than 62 million votes for President of the United States." [applause]
Now, I can’t and you can’t go back in time and hug all those children that preceded us, but we can do that now. We can reach out to make sure every child has a champion because I am as sure of this as anything I have ever known.
America is still the greatest country in the world. This is still the place where anyone can beat the odds. It’s up to each and every one of us to keep working to make America better and stronger and fairer.
Thank you. God bless you and God bless the work of the Children’s Defense Fund. [cheers and applause]
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