2019年哈佛大学优秀毕业生演讲(中英对照)

2019年哈佛大学优秀毕业生Eunice Mwabe演讲搞中英对照
As a little girl growing up in a little farm just outside of Nairobi Kenya I spent a lot of time wondering how about the world outside. I spent my weekends watching TV and listening to music. I watched old sixties movies on school nights when I was supposed to sleep, and I read a lot of books, I mean, a lot of books. I devoured media because I was thirsty to understand the world outside of confines of my otherwise simple, comfortable and incredibly joyful upbringing. So it was no surprise that everything I knew about America, I knew from media. And this was before social media, so the variety of images I had of the United States was limited to what movies wanted me, an outsider, to know about this land of the free and home of the brave, the watched movies about American high schools in particular. And I found them absolutely fascinating and l learnt a lot. For example, l learnt that in America you could walk out of classed before teachers dismissed you just as long as the bell had rang, and I thought to myself indeed this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, because this kind of behavior wouldn’t fly where I’m from. In America, becoming a homecoming king and homecoming queen was a big deal, but I never understood where home was and where people had gone enough to be coming.
I also learnt that in America everyone was always looking for a prom date, and that if you dropped your books and someone picked them up for you and gazed into your eyes, then at the end of the year they would become your prom date. To date, I find it utterly impressive that the content was consistent across the board. You watched Mean Girls and it was like you had watched everything.
Yet these thoroughly analyzed case studies of my peers could never have prepared me for the past 4 years as an international student at Harvard. In fact, in a way I held a lot of misconceptions about the United States because of them, now I know, more often than not, this phenomenon happens the other way around. For instance, if I walk into a room and I say” Hi, my name is Mwabe, and I’m from Nairobi Kenya”, a lot of things will go through your mind like” wow! She speaks such good English” or perhaps you might ask the age-old question and what I’m sure we are all wondering today, I wonder whether she’s listening to Ariana Grande’s music. Yet in the same way I too had my own stereotypes about the United States. There were stories I had heard throughout my life that had embed plenty of assumptions in my mind, racial stereotypes, stereotypes about people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, stereotypes about American preferences. At times I wouldn’t realize I had these perceptions in my mind but I always found myself holding on to them ever so tightly whenever I encountered something new and different that I wasn’t willing to try. The thing with stereotypes that makes them so powerful that
they menacingly appear to be true and it can be so comfortable to hold on to them because predictability is easy to work with. New ones make things complicated. New ones don’t fit into policy or captivating film narratives and once you’re comfortable enough in what you know, there is no reason to step out of it. I have always been fascinated by people, cultures, history. Why we think, the way we think based on where we grew up or experiences, and it was this fascination that led me to the anthropology department. I was excited at the prospect of a concentration where, for the most part, I got to observe people and theorize about why they do, what they do.
At first, they started as a self-centered process in the midst of my debilitating, homesickness and reluctance to adjust, I need an excuse to get out of having to engage with this new country and its people by delving deeper to understand myself, my roots and my culture. On any lovely Wednesday afternoon you’d find me at a section in tazza either finding a way to connect every possible theory to African continent or vehemently retorting to something appear had said and it always sounded like, well I just wanted to push back on that for a little bit and say that is based on a very Western framework of thinking. Around my friends, I studied every statement in my culture especially when I didn’t want to try something new, like in my culture we don’t eat quinoa or in my culture we don’t ask professors about weekends or agree to call them by their first names I’m sorry Dean Cora… I mean… and while this transformative liberal art education has given me the tools to explain where I’m from or why you wouldn’t find me running by the Charles in the winter when no one is chasing me.
So centered intellectual pursuit can get incredibly dissatisfying and ultimately lonely, and so I began to observing Americans instead away from the images that had for so long filled my head, I promptly began my fieldwork outlining the rituals among American 20 year olds, their sociality, their tribal customs and norms, what they found taboo to talk about in public. They are different kinship systems and values for concepts like personal space, and how it’s going isn’t actually a question about how it’s going. Eventually I too began to participate in the native rituals, annual festivals like the Super Bowl and this collaborative activity that was creating a March Madness bracket. I started watching American news as an empathy exercise really, and slowly but surely my eyes began to open to certain the reality about the American experience through the lens of Harvard of class 2019 that bring it 1,2&3 could never taught me even in a million years. There were experiences that brought us together as a community and reminded me of the universality of our experiences. It was in the looks of all an amazement and chagrin for some when we witnessed Adams house rise as a phoenix from the ashes blessing us with what had to be the
greatest housing video of all time. It was in your faces every time you worried about the inequalities of your education system. It was in your pain when another unarmed black man was shot. It was in the face of an understaffed homeless shelter and an increasingly gentrifying town. Now I know Harvard is not the representative of the entire United States, in fact if anything, this heavily endowed bubble is far from the reality faced by millions in this country, but if there is anything I am thankful for, it has been the opportunity to have been a part of class of 2019, a class of so strong, talented, beautiful, smart, ambitious young people who have shared me little snippets of where they are from and where they hope to go.
And so at the end of this anthropological study I would share with you all my findings based on the statistical sample that has been my interactions with the class of 2019, the most important of them being that people is people and joy is joy, and pain is pain everywhere. We cannot limit ourselves to what we know based on where we come from. In the same vein, let it not be that this Harvard experience becomes our culture, if you will, that we get so attached to bleeding this crimson blood that we are so unwilling to step out and be challenged to learn something new or presently engaged when we encounter something or someone different. Statistically speaking, those who have let these grounds have had a palpable impact in the world, those have gone ahead of us have disrupted culture, transformed global politics, revolutionized economies and we will most probably go ahead and do equally significant things, if not more. But these accolades, these achievements do not make us any better, or lives any more valuable, or joy any more valid, our anger any more justified than the man across the street for whom every dollar counts. This is no way meant to devalue or worse, if anything. It takes away this pressure that we need to prove a point to the world that we need to prove we went to Harvard and did enough with this opportunity.
Class of 2019, you graduate from Harvard but you’re worth so much more in and of yourself and so I employ you in the words of great philosopher of our day Pulitzer Prize winner Kendrick Lamar, sit down, be humble. Humility not being defined by we downplay the power that comes with the name, humility not being saying to those who ask that we went to a school in Boston, but humility being the willingness to see that all humanity as equal Harvard degree notwithstanding, humility being the willingness to learn as much as we can about those different from us outside what we know and then using this Harvard degree too as we say khumba to do what we can with what we have to leave a space better than we found it. The world is in need of more people who work through life with this sense of wonder, people courageous enough to engage that which is
different or strange or even unacceptable, willing enough to step out of what they think they know and humble enough to learn from each experience more than ever our generation needs leadership that is willing to love and serve within this rare blend of courage and humility, courageous enough to secure the bag, humble enough to do it without letting it define you. It is my hope, class of 2019 that it shall be said of us that we embodied in the years to come.
Thank you and congratulations!
作为一个在肯尼亚内罗毕郊外的小农场长大的小女孩，我花了很多时间思考外面的世界。

在周末，我看电视、听音乐，上学的时候，用睡觉的时间看60年代的电影，我读了很多书，真的很多。

我如饥似渴地阅读媒体，因为我渴望了解在我简单、舒适、快乐的成长环境之外的世界。

所以不出所料，我对美国的所有了解，都来自媒体。

那时还没有社交媒体，所以我对美国的各种印象仅限于电影想让我这个局外人了解到的那样——这是片自由的土地和勇敢者的家园，尤其是我看过的那些关于美国高中的电影。

我发现那真的令人着迷,我学到了很多东西。

比如,我了解到,在美国，只要钟声响起，你就可以走出教室而不被老师责罚,确实,我也觉得这是自由的土地,勇敢者的家园,因为这种行为决不会发生在我的国家。

在美国，成为返校节国王和返校节女王是一件大事，而我从来都不知道家在哪里，也不知道人们去了哪些地方。

我还了解到，在美国，每个人都在寻找毕业舞会的舞伴，如果你把书掉在地上，有人帮你捡起来，又盯着你的眼睛看，那么到了年底，他们就会成为你的舞伴。

到目前为止，我发现令人印象深刻的是，情况都是一样的。

如果你看了《贱女孩》，你就会明白一切。

然而，对这些同龄人进行深入分析的案例研究，远没有让我为过去4年哈佛国际学生的生活做好准备。

事实上，这让我在某种程度上对美国有很多误解。

现在我知道，事实通常与之相反。

举个例子，如果我走进一个房间，说“嗨，我叫Mwabe，我来自肯尼亚内罗毕”，你可能就回想“哇！她的英语说得很好”，或者可能会问那个古老的问题，我确定这个问题今天我们也都想知道——她是否也听Ariana Grande的音乐。

但是同样，我对美国也有自己的刻板印象。

我一生中听到的很多故事在我的脑海中植入了很多假设，种族成见，对来自不同社会经济背景的人们的成见，对美国偏好的成见。

有时候我意识不到自己有这些看法，但是每当遇到新的事物，我不愿意尝试的时候，我发现我的成见如此强烈。

刻板印象相当强大，甚至具有威胁性，因为用刻板印象可以轻松去预测其他事情。

新事物使事情变得复杂。

新生会打破常规。

一旦你满足于现在了解的一切，就不会想再跳出来。

我一直着迷于人，文化和历史。

我们为什么思考，我们的思考方式取决于我们成长的地方或经历，正是这样驱使我进入了人类学系学习。

我对专注观察十分感兴趣，在大多数情况下，我观察人们做什么，
为什么这样做，然后得到结论。

首先，这个过程围绕自我开始，在我虚弱，想家又不愿意调整的时候，我需要一个借口摆脱与这个新国家及合人们的交往，我更深入地了解自己，我的根源和我的文化。

每到星期三下午，我都会去tazza，或者找任何和非洲大陆有关的理论，或者是强烈地反驳出现的事情，一般会说，我只是想稍做讨论，然后说这是非常西方的思维方式。

和我的朋友在一起，我清楚了我文化的点点滴滴，尤其是当我不想尝试新事物时，比如我们不吃藜麦，不打听教授的周末生活或打电话的时候直接叫他们的名字，对不起Dean Cora…我的意思是…尽管这种变革性的文科教育告诉了我从哪里来，我也不会在没有人追我的冬天沿着查尔斯街跑。

剖析自我的理论研究让人难以置信的不满，而且极其孤独。

所以我开始观察美国人。

我迅速开始了实地考察，而不是凭借长期充斥在我脑海中的印象。

我总结20岁美国人的社交礼仪，风俗习惯和公共场合的交谈忌讳。

在个人空间的问题上，他们的亲属制度和价值观念不同。

至于为什么是这样其实也并不是一个问题。

最终，我也开始参加当地的仪式，像超级碗这样的年度节日，以及持续疯狂了三个月的联合活动。

我开始把看美国新闻当成是一种同理心的练习，慢慢地，但可以肯定的是，我开始从哈佛2019级的学生身上看到发生美国的真实故事，这些我在别处无论如何也不会学到。

相同的经历让我们成为一个整体，这也让我想起了体验的普遍性。

当我们看到亚当斯的房子像凤凰一样从灰烬中升起，为我们带来有史以来最伟大的住房视频时，所有人的表情都是既惊讶又有些懊恼。

当你感到教育的不公，你的情绪溢于言表，当你看到一个手无寸铁的黑人被枪杀，你感到痛心。

美国面对的是一个人手稀少的无家可归者收容所和一个日益绅士化的城镇。

现在我知道哈佛并不代表整个美国,事实上,这个巨大的泡沫远不是在这个国家数以百万计的人所面临的现实。

但是如果有什么事情我要感谢的话,那就是有机会成为2019级的一部分,如此坚强,有才华,漂亮,聪明,雄心勃勃的年轻人共享给关于他们从哪里来和他们想去哪的点点滴滴。

最后，关于人类学的研究,我想和你们分享基于我和2019级的交流得到的统计样本以后的发现。

其中最重要的就是：人，快乐，痛苦就在那里，并且无处不在。

我们不能根据自己的出身来限制自己的认知。

同样,不要让这在哈佛的经历成为我们的文化,如果你愿意,不要自我满足,当我们遇到不同的人或事的时候不愿意站出来迎接挑战、接受新东西。

从统计数字上说，那些以这些理由为基础的人对世界产生了明显的影响，那些我们的前辈破坏了文化，改变了全球政治，改革了经济，我们很可能会步其后尘，做同样重要的事情，如果不是更多的话。

但是这些荣誉，这些成就并没有使我们变得更好，没有使我们的生活变得更有价值，没有使我们的快乐变得更有意义，没有使我们的愤怒变得更有道理。

这绝不意味着要贬值，甚至更糟。

它只是消除了我们需要向世界证明一点的压力，我们需要证明我们上过哈佛，并充
分利用过这个机会。

2019届的毕业生们，你们从哈佛毕业，你们都成就非凡，所以我用当代伟大哲学家、普利策奖得主肯德里克·拉马尔的话来说，坐下来，谦虚一点。

谦逊的定义并不是要我们妄自菲薄，不是对那些要求我们去波士顿上学的人说的，而是愿意把所有人都看作是和哈佛学位平等的程度，是愿意尽可能多地学习那些与我们不同的人和我们不知道的东西，然后利用这个哈佛学位和我们的所学，正如我们所说的，去做我们所能做的，用我们所拥有的让我们生活的地方变得更好。

如今的世界比任何时候都需要有好奇心的人,有足够的勇气从事与众不同、陌生甚至是不可接受的事情,愿意走出自己的认知,谦虚地从每次经历中去学习的人。

我们这一代人需要的是这样的领导:勇敢而又谦卑地爱护和服务他人，足够勇敢和谦逊地去做事，而不让它定义你。

2019届的同学们，我希望在未来的日子里，这些能在我们的身上得到体现。

谢谢，祝贺你们!。