I want to talk to you tonight about the work that makes all other work possible, about the millions of women who go to work in our homes every single day, caring for children as nannies, caring for our loved ones with disabilities and our elders, as home care workers, maintaining sanity in our homes as cleaners. It's the work that makes all other work possible. And it's mostly done by women, more than 90 percent women, disproportionately women of color. And the work itself is associated with work that women have historically done, work that's been made incredibly invisible and taken for granted in our culture. But it's so fundamental to everything else in our world. It makes it possible for all of us to go out and do what we do in the world every single day, knowing that the most precious aspects of our lives are in good hands.
今晚我想和大家谈谈 让所有工作成为可能的工作, 谈谈数百万每天来到我们的家中 工作的女性, 有的是照顾孩子的保姆, 有的是照顾我们 身体不便的亲人和长辈的 家庭护理员, 有的是让住宅保持洁净的清洁工。 这是让所有工作成为可能的职业。 做这份工作的,90%都是女性, 非白人女性更多。 而这份工作本身 与历史上女性扮演的角色有关, 在我们的文化中很少受关注, 我们都以习以为常了。 但这种工作是世界上 其他事情的根基, 让我们能够每一天放心的走出家门, 并承担起我们在世界上的责任, 不需要担心我们生活中最重要的部分。
But we don't think about it that way. It's almost defined by its invisibility. You could go into any neighborhood and not know which homes are also workplaces. There's no sign. There's no list or registry. It's just invisible. And it's this work that is not even referred to as real work. It's referred to as "help." It's often seen as unskilled, not seen as professional. And race has played a profound role in how we value this work in our culture. Some of the first domestic workers in the United States were black women who were enslaved, and racial exclusion has shaped their conditions for generations. In the 1930s, when Congress was discussing the labor laws that would be a part of the New Deal, that would protect all workers, Southern members of Congress refused to support those labor laws if they included protections for domestic workers and farmworkers. That history of racial exclusion and our cultural devaluing of work that's associated with women now means that millions of women go to work every single day, work incredibly hard and still can't make ends meet. They earn poverty wages without a safety net, so that the women that we're counting on to take care of us and our families can't take care of their own, doing this work.
但我们却不这样看待这份工作。 这份工作几乎是透明的。 你可以走进任何社区 却不知道哪座房子 也是某些人的办公室。 没有任何标志, 没有名单,没有前台。 它是看不到的。 而且这份工作 还不被人当作真的工作, 人们将其称为“帮忙”。 它常被视作无需技能, 非正式的工作。 而种族深深影响了 我们对这份工作的态度, 美国第一批家政工作者有一些是 受到奴役的黑人女性, 而种族隔离已经影响了 她们好几代人的生活了。 在上世纪三十年代, 国会修改了劳动法, 成为了“罗斯福新政"的一部分, 来保护所有劳动者。 来自南部的议员 拒绝支持这些劳动法规, 因为这项法规包括了 对家政工人和农场工人的保护。 种族隔离的历史 和我们文化上对女性职业的轻视, 使得现在上百万的女性 每天辛勤工作, 却仍是勉强度日。 她们在贫困线上挣扎, 没有社会保障。 我们依赖这些女性照顾我们和家人, 但她们却无法靠这份工作照顾自己。
But my work over the last 20 years has been about changing precisely that. It's about making these jobs good jobs that you can take pride in and support your family on. At the National Domestic Workers Alliance, we've been working hard in states to pass new laws that will protect domestic workers from discrimination and sexual harassment, that will create days of rest, paid time off, even. So far, eight states have passed domestic workers bills of rights. Yes.
但我二十年来的工作 正是为了改变这一点。 试图让家政工作变成 受尊重的令人骄傲的职业, 并且凭此养活一家人。 在美国家政工作者联盟, 我们努力促使各州通过新的法案 来保护家政工作者 不受歧视和性侵,并提供 休息日、带薪假期。 目前为止,有八个州已经 通过家政工作者的权利法案。 是的!
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And during the Obama administration, we were successful in bringing two million home care workers under minimum wage and overtime protections for the first time since 1937.
在奥巴马执政期间, 我们成功地让两百万家政工作者 享受到最低薪资及加班保护。 这是1937年以来的第一次。
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Most recently, we've been really excited to launch a new portable benefits platform for domestic workers, called "Alia," which allows for domestic workers with multiple clients to give them access to benefits for the very first time.
最近,我们怀着激动的心情 启动了全新的移动福利平台, 专门服务于家政工人,名叫“Alia”, 该平台第一次让服务于 多个家庭的家政工人 能够享受到福利。
So really important progress is being made. But I would argue tonight that one of the most important things that domestic workers can provide is actually what they can teach us about humanity itself and about what it will take to create a more humane world for our children. In the face of extreme immorality, domestic workers can be our moral compass. And it makes sense, because what they do is so fundamental to the very basics of human need and humanity. They are there when we are born into this world; they shape who we become in this world; and they are with us as we prepare to leave this world.
我们正在实现重大的进步。 但是今晚我想说, 家政工作者所提供的最重要的东西, 实际上也是她们能教会我们的, 关于人性自身的事情, 关于我们如何为后代 创造一个更人性的世界。 在沦丧的道德面前, 家政工作者可以是我们的指南针。 这很好理解, 因为她们的工作对人类最基本的 需求和人性如此重要。 我们出生时她们在场, 她们塑造了我们的生活, 我们将要离开人世时她们也在场。
And their experiences with families are so varied. They have some relationships with the families that they work for that are incredibly positive and mutually supportive and last for years and years. And then the opposite also happens. And we've seen cases of sexual violence and assault, of extreme forms of abuse and exploitation. We've seen cases of human trafficking.
她们和所服务的家庭 会有种种不同的故事。 她们与有些所服务的家庭 有非常积极和互相支持的关系, 并且持续数年。 但也有相反的情况。 有时还有性侵犯和性暴力事件, 还有极端的虐待和剥削, 甚至还有拐卖的案例。
Domestic workers live in poor neighborhoods, and then they go to work in very wealthy ones. They cross cultures and generations and borders and boundaries, and their job, no matter what, is to show up and care -- to nurture, to feed, to clothe, to bathe, to listen, to encourage, to ensure safety, to support dignity ... to care no matter what.
家政工人生活在糟糕的社区, 她们工作的社区却十分富裕。 她们跨越了文化、代际和国界。 而不管怎样,她们的职责 都是如约出现并提供关照—— 给人呵护、给人喂食、 帮人穿衣、帮人沐浴, 倾听、鼓励, 保障安全, 维护尊严—— 无论如何,都会尽职尽责。
I want to tell you a story of a woman I met early on in this work. Her name is Lily. Lily and her family lived in Jamaica, and when she was 15 years old, she was approached by an American couple who were looking for a live-in nanny to come live with them in the United States and help them care for their children. They offered Lily's family that if she came to work as their nanny, she would be able to have access to a US education, and she would have a weekly salary sent home to help her family financially. They decided it was a good idea and decided to take the opportunity. Lily held up her end of the bargain and helped to raise three children. But all communication with her family was severed: no letters, no phone calls. She was never allowed to go to school, and she was never paid -- for 15 years.
我想给大家讲一讲 我在工作中遇到的一位女性, 她叫莉莉。 莉莉和家人曾住在牙买加。 她15岁的时候, 有对美国夫妇找到了她, 需要一位保姆住在他们 在美国的家里, 帮他们照顾孩子。 他们向莉莉的家人保证 如果莉莉来当保姆, 莉莉将会接受美国的教育, 她每周还有薪水, 可以寄回家补贴家用。 莉莉一家觉得这是个好主意, 决定抓住这个机会。 莉莉遵守了自己的承诺, 帮忙抚养三个孩子。 但她失去了与家人的所有联系。 没有信件,没有电话。 那对夫妇从没让她去上学, 她从没领过薪水, 整整15年。
One day, she saw an article in a newspaper about another domestic worker with a really similar story to hers, another case that I was working on at the time, and she found a way to reach me. She also found a way to reach her brother, who was living in the United States at the time as well. Between the two of us, we were able to help her escape. And she had the help of one of the children. One of the children was old enough to realize that the way his nanny was being treated was wrong, and he gave her the money that he had been saving through his childhood to help her escape.
有一天,她在报纸上看到 一篇关于另一名家政工人的文章, 两人遭遇十分相似。 而当时我正在帮助这名家政工人。 莉莉想办法找到了我, 也想办法找到了她的哥哥。 那时她哥哥恰好也在美国。 我和她哥哥最后把她救了出来。 莉莉也得到了其中一个孩子的帮助。 这个孩子已经长大,并能够理解 他的保姆受到了不公正的待遇。 他还把从小存的钱给了她, 来帮她逃脱。
But here's the thing about this story. She was essentially enslaved for 15 years. Human trafficking and slavery is a criminal offense. And so her lawyers and I asked Lily, did she want to press criminal charges for what had happened to her. And after thinking about what it would mean, she said no, because she didn't want the children to be separated from their parents. Instead, we filed a civil lawsuit, and we eventually won the case, and her case became a rallying cry for domestic workers everywhere. She was reunited with her family and went on to have a family of her own.
这个故事的重点在于, 莉莉等同于被奴役了15年。 人口拐卖和奴役是刑事犯罪。 所以莉莉的律师和我问她, 要不要因为她的遭遇 而提出刑事指控? 然而考虑到这行为的后果, 她婉拒了。 因为她不希望 让那些孩子与父母分开。 我们最终提出了 民事控告,并赢了官司, 她的案子使各地的 家政工人激动万分。 她不但和家人团聚, 还建立了自己的家庭。
But the thing that's so profound to me about this story is, despite having 15 years stolen from her life, it did not affect the care and compassion that she felt for the children. And I see this from domestic workers all the time. In the face of indignities and our failure to respect and value this work in our culture, they still show up, and they care. They're simply too proximate to our shared humanity. They know how your toddler likes to be held as they take their bottle before a nap. They know how your mother likes her tea, how to make her smile and tell stories despite her dementia. They are so proximate to our humanity. They know that at the end of the day, these are people who are part of families -- someone's mother, someone's grandmother, someone's best friend and someone's baby; undeniably human, and therefore, not disposable.
这个故事令我深受触动的一点是, 尽管有人偷走了她生命的15年, 却没有改变她对孩子们的关怀和同情。 我经常在家政工人身上看到这一点。 在遭受屈辱的时候, 在我们的文化没能 尊重和重视家政工作的时候, 她们仍然如约出现, 提供呵护。 她们太了解我们共同的人性了。 她们知道你的孩子 喜欢怎么样被抱着, 她们在孩子入睡前给他们喂奶。 她们知道你的母亲喜欢喝怎样的茶, 知道怎样让有痴呆症的 母亲笑起来,怎样给她讲故事。 她们如此懂得我们的人性。 她们知道在一天结束之时, 她们服务的对象都是家庭的一分子, 或许是位母亲, 或许是位祖母, 或许是某人的挚友, 或许是某人的孩子。 他们都是人, 因此是不可以随意抛弃的。
Domestic workers know that any time a single person becomes disposable, it's a slippery slope. You see, the cultural devaluing of domestic work is a reflection of a hierarchy of human value that defines everything in our world, a hierarchy that values the lives and contributions of some groups of people over others, based on race, gender, class, immigration status -- any number of categories. And that hierarchy of human value requires stories about those groups of people in order to sustain itself. So these stories have seeped deep into our culture about how some people are less intelligent, some people are less intuitive, weaker, by extension, less trustworthy, less valuable and ultimately, less human. And domestic workers know it's a slippery slope when we start to see a worker as less than a real worker, to a woman as less than a woman, to a mother as less than a mother, to a child as less than a child.
家政工人知道, 一旦有人遭到抛弃, 便是人性滑坡的开始。 轻视家政工作的文化, 意味着将人类价值划分等级, 而这种人类价值定义着 这世上所有一切; 这种等级重视 某些群体的生命和贡献, 又轻视另一些群体的。 其依据则是种族、性别、 阶级和合法身份, 以及其他方面的差异。 而这种价值等级需要这些家政工人 来保持自身的延续。 因此这些人的故事 深深渗透进了我们的文化, 有些人比别人笨, 有些人比别人迟钝, 比别人弱, 进而不够可信, 不够有价值, 最后, 他们的人格没有得到应有的尊重。 而家政工作者知道这人性的滑坡, 当我们忘记她们也是真正的劳动者, 忘记她们也有女性的尊严, 忘记她们也是母亲, 忘记有些也是孩子。
In the spring of 2018, the Trump administration announced a new policy at the US-Mexico border, a zero-tolerance policy, to forcibly separate all children from their parents, who were arriving at the border seeking asylum; children as young as 18 months, separated from their parents after a long and arduous journey to reach the US-Mexico border in search of safety and a new beginning. Thousands of children separated. And because they were migrants, they were treated as less than children.
2018年的春天, 特朗普政府在美墨边境 宣布了一项新政策, 一项零容忍的政策, 强制将儿童与父母分离, 这些父母来到边境是为了寻求庇护。 小至18个月的儿童被迫与父母分离, 而他们刚经过长途的 跋涉才来到美墨边境, 寻求安全的环境与全新的开始。 数千名儿童被迫与父母分离。 而由于他们是移民, 他们没有得到普通儿童的待遇。
In response, I helped to organize the Families Belong Together Vigil at the Ursula Border Patrol Processing Center in McAllen, Texas, on Father's Day. Inside that processing center, there were hundreds of children who were being held, processed and then prepared to be shipped all over country to be jailed in facilities hundreds of miles away from their parents. I saw with my own eyes children not [old] enough for kindergarten in unmarked buses, being shipped off to jails hundreds of miles away. And as they passed us by, they reached for us through the windows, as we stood vigil to let them know that they are not alone, and we are fighting for them.
为此,我在父亲节那天参与 组织了“家庭团聚守夜活动”, 就在德克萨斯州麦克艾伦的 乌尔索拉边境巡逻中心。 在巡逻中心,有数百名儿童 处在扣留状态,等待下一步安排, 他们随后会迁往全美各地, 扣留在某处,与父母相隔数百公里。 我亲眼目睹了, 有些孩子还不到上幼儿园的年级, 乘着没有标识的车, 前往数百英里之外的关押所。 他们与我们擦肩而过的时候, 会通过窗子向我们示意。 我们守夜是为了告诉他们, 他们并不孤独, 我们在为他们而战。
Domestic workers came from all over Texas to be a part of the vigil. They saw in those families their own family stories. They had also come here in search of safety and a new beginning, a better life for their families, and they saw in the eyes of those children their own children. And through our tears, we looked at each other and we asked each other, "How did we get here, to putting children in cages and separating them from the people who love them the most in the world?" How? And what I thought to myself was: if domestic workers were in charge, this never would have happened. Our humanity would never have been so disposable that we would be treating children in this way.
德州各地的家政工作者 都赶来参加守夜。 她们在这些家庭中 看到了自己家庭的故事。 她们来到美国也是 为了安全和新的开始, 为了让家人更好的生活。 她们在这些孩子的眼中, 看到了自己的孩子。 我们难掩泪水, 看着彼此,询问彼此, “我们是如何走到这一步的? 把儿童置于牢笼, 把他们从全世界 最爱他们的人身边带走? 怎么回事?” 我在心里想的是, 如果家政工作者是掌权者, 这样的事永远不会发生。 我们的人性不会遭到随意践踏, 到了如此对待儿童的地步。
The Dalai Lama once said that love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. In other words, they are fundamental to human existence.
达赖喇嘛曾经说过, 爱与同情是必须品, 不是奢侈品。 没有这些,人类无法生存。 换言之,它们对人类生存 是不可或缺的。
Domestic workers are in charge of the fundamentals. They love and they care, and they show compassion no matter what. We live in a time of moral choices everywhere we turn: at the border, at the ballot box, in our workplaces, right in our homes, full of moral choices.
家政工人掌握的 正是这些不可或缺的品质。 她们有爱心,她们懂得关怀, 她们总是充满同情心,不管发生什么。 我们生活在道德抉择的时代。 抉择无处不在, 在边境问题上, 在选举时, 在工作场所, 甚至在家中,到处都是道德抉择。
As you go about your day and you encounter these moral choices, think of Lily. Think like Lily. Think like a domestic worker who shows up and cares no matter what. Love and compassion, no matter what. Show up like a domestic worker, because our children are counting on us.
在你度过每一天,面对道德抉择时, 想想莉莉。 并像莉莉一样思考。 像家政工人那样思考, 无论如何都如约出现,提供关怀。 奉献爱与关怀,不论发生什么。 像家政工作者那样如约出现, 因为孩子们依靠着我们。
Thank you.
谢谢。
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