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我是企業號星艦老兵,我駕著巨型星際飛船在銀河系中翱翔,與來自世界各地,包含許多不同種族、不同文化、不同傳統的船員同心協力。我們的任務是探索陌生的新世界,尋找新生命和新文明,勇敢邁向沒人去過的地方。
好-(掌聲)我是日本移民的第三代後裔。他們來到美國,勇敢踏入一個陌生的新世界,尋找新的機會。我母親出生於加州沙加緬度市,我父親是舊金山人。他們在洛杉磯相遇、結婚,我也在那裡出生。
1941年12月7日,我四歲時,珍珠港被日本轟炸。一夕之間,全球陷入一場世界大戰。突然間,美國充滿歇斯底里的情緒。日裔美國人,擁有日本血統的美國公民遭受懷疑和恐懼的目光,甚至是毫不掩飾的仇恨,只因為我們碰巧長得像那些轟炸珍珠港的人。歇斯底里的情緒不斷延燒,直到1942年2月,美國總統富蘭克林.德拉諾.羅斯福下令將美國西岸所有日裔美國人集中管理。沒有罪名、沒有審判、沒有正當法律程序。正當法律程序是我們司法體制的核心支柱,一切都消失無蹤。我們被集中起來,監禁在10個鐵絲網圍繞的拘留營,位於美國最荒涼的地區:亞利桑那州酷熱的沙漠、阿肯色州潮濕的沼澤,懷俄明、愛達荷、猶他、科羅拉多州的不毛之地,以及加州兩處最荒涼的地帶。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
I'm a veteran of the starship Enterprise. I soared through the galaxy driving a huge starship with a crew made up of people from all over this world, many different races, many different cultures, many different heritages, all working together, and our mission was to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Well — (Applause) — I am the grandson of immigrants from Japan who went to America, boldly going to a strange new world, seeking new opportunities. My mother was born in Sacramento, California. My father was a San Franciscan. They met and married in Los Angeles, and I was born there.
I was four years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941 by Japan, and overnight, the world was plunged into a world war. America suddenly was swept up by hysteria. Japanese-Americans, American citizens of Japanese ancestry, were looked on with suspicion and fear and with outright hatred simply because we happened to look like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. And the hysteria grew and grew until in February 1942, the president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ordered all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast of America to be summarily rounded up with no charges, with no trial, with no due process. Due process, this is a core pillar of our justice system. That all disappeared. We were to be rounded up and imprisoned in 10 barbed-wire prison camps in some of the most desolate places in America: the blistering hot desert of Arizona, the sultry swamps of Arkansas, the wastelands of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and two of the most desolate places in California.
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4月20日,我度過5歲生日。生日後幾個星期,我父母把弟弟、妹妹和我一早叫起來,匆匆替我們穿上衣服。弟弟和我坐在客廳裡,望向窗外。我們看見兩名士兵走上我家車道,他們的步槍上裝著刺刀。他們踏上前廊,重重地敲門,我父親上前應門。士兵命令我們走出家門,父親給我和弟弟一人一個小行李箱。我們走出門外,站在車道上,等母親出來。當母親終於出來時,她一手抱著襁褓中的妹妹,一手拿著一個大行李袋,臉上掛著兩行眼淚。我永遠忘不了那個場景,它烙印在我的記憶中。
我們從家裡被帶走,與其他日裔美國人家庭一起登上一列火車,每節車廂兩端都有士兵駐守,彷彿我們是罪犯。我們跨越這個國家三分之二的距離,在顛簸的火車上度過四天三夜,來到阿肯色州沼澤地帶。我依然記得層層圍繞的鐵絲網。我記得高聳的哨兵塔,架設著瞄準我們的機槍。我記得跟隨我的探照燈光,當我半夜從舍房跑到廁所時。但對5歲的我來說,我覺得尿尿時有人替我照路還蠻不錯的。當時我是個孩子,無法理解自己的處境。
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On April 20th, I celebrated my fifth birthday, and just a few weeks after my birthday, my parents got my younger brother, my baby sister and me up very early one morning, and they dressed us hurriedly. My brother and I were in the living room looking out the front window, and we saw two soldiers marching up our driveway. They carried bayonets on their rifles. They stomped up the front porch and banged on the door. My father answered it, and the soldiers ordered us out of our home. My father gave my brother and me small luggages to carry, and we walked out and stood on the driveway waiting for our mother to come out, and when my mother finally came out, she had our baby sister in one arm, a huge duffel bag in the other, and tears were streaming down both her cheeks. I will never be able to forget that scene. It is burned into my memory.
We were taken from our home and loaded on to train cars with other Japanese-American families. There were guards stationed at both ends of each car, as if we were criminals. We were taken two thirds of the way across the country, rocking on that train for four days and three nights, to the swamps of Arkansas. I still remember the barbed wire fence that confined me. I remember the tall sentry tower with the machine guns pointed at us. I remember the searchlight that followed me when I made the night runs from my barrack to the latrine. But to five-year-old me, I thought it was kind of nice that they'd lit the way for me to pee. I was a child, too young to understand the circumstances of my being there.
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孩子的適應力相當驚人,如此異常的狀態成了我在拘留營中習以為常的生活。我習慣了每天三次排隊,在吵雜的食堂中吃糟糕的伙食;我習慣了和父親一起在公共浴室洗澡。身處監獄,一座鐵絲網環繞的拘留營成了我眼中的正常生活。
戰爭結束後,我們被釋放,領到一張可前往美國任何地方的單程車票。我父母決定返回家鄉,回到洛杉磯。但洛杉磯並非友善的地方。我們身無分文,一切都被剝奪,周遭的敵意依然濃厚。我們第一個落腳處是Skid Row,城市最底層的貧民窟,與流浪漢、醉鬼、瘋子住在一起。四處瀰漫著尿騷味,無論是街道、小巷或走廊。那是令人恐懼的經歷,對孩子來說相當可怕。我記得有一次,一個醉漢踉踉蹌蹌地走來,正好倒在我們面前,吐了滿地。我妹妹說:「媽媽,我們回家吧!」因為對我們來說,鐵絲網裡頭就是家。
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Children are amazingly adaptable. What would be grotesquely abnormal became my normality in the prisoner of war camps. It became routine for me to line up three times a day to eat lousy food in a noisy mess hall. It became normal for me to go with my father to bathe in a mass shower. Being in a prison, a barbed-wire prison camp, became my normality.
When the war ended, we were released, and given a one-way ticket to anywhere in the United States. My parents decided to go back home to Los Angeles, but Los Angeles was not a welcoming place. We were penniless. Everything had been taken from us, and the hostility was intense. Our first home was on Skid Row in the lowest part of our city, living with derelicts, drunkards and crazy people, the stench of urine all over, on the street, in the alley, in the hallway. It was a horrible experience, and for us kids, it was terrorizing. I remember once a drunkard came staggering down, fell down right in front of us, and threw up. My baby sister said, "Mama, let's go back home," because behind barbed wires was for us home.
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我父母努力工作,重新站穩腳步。我們失去了一切,他們在中年時期一切重頭開始。他們拼命工作,終於存到足夠的錢,在不錯的街區買下一棟三間臥室的房子。當時我是十幾歲的青少年,對童年的監禁生活非常好奇。我在公民課本中讀到美國民主體制理念:人人生而平等,我們有不可剝奪的生活、自由及追求幸福的權利,這與我印象中的童年監禁生活截然不同。我閱讀歷史書籍,無法找到任何相關描述,於是我在晚餐後與父親進行長時間、有時是激烈的討論。我們有過相當多類似的討論,我從中獲得的是父親的智慧。他是監禁期間吃過最多苦頭的人,但他理解美國民主體制。他告訴我,我們的民主是人民的民主,它可以如同人民般強大,但也像人一樣會犯錯。他告訴我,美國民主體制主要取決於良善的人,他們珍視這個體制的理念,積極參與推動民主發展的過程。伊利諾州長正參與總統競選,他把我帶到一間競選總部,使我瞭解美國選舉政治。他也告訴我日裔美籍青年在二戰中的故事。
珍珠港遭轟炸後,日裔美籍青年與美國青年一樣,紛紛前往徵兵處,志願為祖國而戰。這種愛國的舉動得到的回應彷彿挨了一巴掌。我們被拒絕入伍,被歸類為敵人,而非盟友。敵人的稱呼令人憤慨。當你志願為祖國而戰,卻被冠以「非盟友」的稱呼。這個字眼意味著「公民」的對立面,他們甚至剝奪了我們的「公民」稱謂,將它們囚禁了一整年。
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My parents worked hard to get back on their feet. We had lost everything. They were at the middle of their lives and starting all over. They worked their fingers to the bone, and ultimately they were able to get the capital together to buy a three-bedroom home in a nice neighborhood. And I was a teenager, and I became very curious about my childhood imprisonment. I had read civics books that told me about the ideals of American democracy. All men are created equal, we have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and I couldn't quite make that fit with what I knew to be my childhood imprisonment. I read history books, and I couldn't find anything about it. And so I engaged my father after dinner in long, sometimes heated conversations. We had many, many conversations like that, and what I got from them was my father's wisdom. He was the one that suffered the most under those conditions of imprisonment, and yet he understood American democracy. He told me that our democracy is a people's democracy, and it can be as great as the people can be, but it is also as fallible as people are. He told me that American democracy is vitally dependent on good people who cherish the ideals of our system and actively engage in the process of making our democracy work. And he took me to a campaign headquarters — the governor of Illinois was running for the presidency — and introduced me to American electoral politics. And he also told me about young Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed, young Japanese-Americans, like all young Americans, rushed to their draft board to volunteer to fight for our country. That act of patriotism was answered with a slap in the face. We were denied service, and categorized as enemy non-alien. It was outrageous to be called an enemy when you're volunteering to fight for your country, but that was compounded with the word "non-alien," which is a word that means "citizen" in the negative. They even took the word "citizen" away from us, and imprisoned them for a whole year.
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之後,政府意識到戰爭期間人力匱乏,就像突然將我們集中監禁一樣,他們開放日裔美籍青年入伍。這完全沒道理可言,但令人驚訝的是,令人震驚的是,成千上萬來自鐵絲網後的日裔美籍男女青年穿上與守衛相同的制服,離開監獄中的家庭,為祖國而戰。
他們說,他們參戰的目的不僅是為了讓家人脫離鐵絲網的束縛,也是因為他們珍視我們政府捍衛的理念,那些必須捍衛、卻被目前作為破壞殆盡的理念。
人人生而平等。他們挺身而出,為祖國而戰。他們被分配在一個全由日裔美國人組成的部隊,派遣至歐洲戰場。他們投身戰爭,以超乎尋常的勇氣和毅力作戰。他們奉命執行最危險的任務,成為傷亡比例最高的部隊。
有一場戰役說明了這一點,那是發生在哥德防線的戰役。德軍被困在峭壁另一側的山坡,躲在堅不可摧的山洞裡。三個盟軍部隊已連續進攻了6個月,雙方陷入僵局。442營奉命支援。442營的士兵想出一個異想天開、但相當危險的辦法:山的後方是一片岩石峭壁,德軍認為不可能由後方進行攻擊。442營的士兵決定執行這項不可能的任務。在一個星月無光的夜晚,他們開始攀爬高度超過1000英呎的峭壁,全副武裝。他們花了一整晚攀登這片峭壁,在黑暗中,一些人因為失手或失足跌入下方深谷喪命,他們無聲無息地墜落,沒有一聲叫喊,以免暴露行蹤。士兵們攀爬了8個小時,到達峭壁頂端的人就地等待第一縷曙光出現。天一破曉,他們立刻發動攻擊。德軍驚慌失措,他們佔領了山頭,突破了哥德防線,6個月的僵局被442營在32分鐘內打破。
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And then the government realized that there's a wartime manpower shortage, and as suddenly as they'd rounded us up, they opened up the military for service by young Japanese-Americans. It was totally irrational, but the amazing thing, the astounding thing, is that thousands of young Japanese-American men and women again went from behind those barbed-wire fences, put on the same uniform as that of our guards, leaving their families in imprisonment, to fight for this country.
They said that they were going to fight not only to get their families out from behind those barbed-wire fences, but because they cherished the very ideal of what our government stands for, should stand for, and that was being abrogated by what was being done.
All men are created equal. And they went to fight for this country. They were put into a segregated all Japanese-American unit and sent to the battlefields of Europe, and they threw themselves into it. They fought with amazing, incredible courage and valor. They were sent out on the most dangerous missions and they sustained the highest combat casualty rate of any unit proportionally.
There is one battle that illustrates that. It was a battle for the Gothic Line. The Germans were embedded in this mountain hillside, rocky hillside, in impregnable caves, and three allied battalions had been pounding away at it for six months, and they were stalemated. The 442nd was called in to add to the fight, but the men of the 442nd came up with a unique but dangerous idea: The backside of the mountain was a sheer rock cliff. The Germans thought an attack from the backside would be impossible. The men of the 442nd decided to do the impossible. On a dark, moonless night, they began scaling that rock wall, a drop of more than 1,000 feet, in full combat gear. They climbed all night long on that sheer cliff. In the darkness, some lost their handhold or their footing and they fell to their deaths in the ravine below. They all fell silently. Not a single one cried out, so as not to give their position away. The men climbed for eight hours straight, and those who made it to the top stayed there until the first break of light, and as soon as light broke, they attacked. The Germans were surprised, and they took the hill and broke the Gothic Line. A six-month stalemate was broken by the 442nd in 32 minutes.
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這是震驚世人的行動。戰爭結束後,442營返回美國。他們是二戰期間獲勳最多的單位。杜魯門總統在白宮草坪迎接他們返國時,對他們說:「你們不僅與敵人作戰,也與世俗偏見作戰,而且你們還大獲全勝。」
他們是我的英雄。他們在這個國家閃耀的理念中堅持自己的信念。他們證明美國人的身分不僅屬於某些人,美國人的身分並非由種族所定義。他們擴展了美國人的定義,其中包含了遭人畏懼、懷疑與仇恨的日裔美國人。他們是促成改變的媒介,他們為我留下一份遺產。他們是我的英雄,父親是我的英雄。他們瞭解民主的意義,引導我走出迷惘。他們留給我一份遺產,隨著這份遺產而來的是一份責任。我下定決心,讓我的國家成為更優秀的美國,讓我們的政府擁有更真實的民主。因為我心目中那些英雄以及我們經歷過的苦難,我能夠以日裔美籍同性戀的身分站在你們面前。更重要的是,我是一個自豪的美國人。
十分感謝。
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It was an amazing act, and when the war ended, the 442nd returned to the United States as the most decorated unit of the entire Second World War. They were greeted back on the White House Lawn by President Truman, who said to them, "You fought not only the enemy but prejudice, and you won."
They are my heroes. They clung to their belief in the shining ideals of this country, and they proved that being an American is not just for some people, that race is not how we define being an American. They expanded what it means to be an American, including Japanese-Americans that were feared and suspected and hated. They were change agents, and they left for me a legacy. They are my heroes and my father is my hero, who understood democracy and guided me through it. They gave me a legacy, and with that legacy comes a responsibility, and I am dedicated to making my country an even better America, to making our government an even truer democracy, and because of the heroes that I have and the struggles that we've gone through, I can stand before you as a gay Japanese-American, but even more than that, I am a proud American.
Thank you very much.