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Seven Moments from U.S. History That Matter Now
七大历史时刻终显其重要性
The dates most Americans remember (July 4, 1776, for example) work as shorthand for signal events.
大多数美国人都已铭记于心的那些日期(比如1776年7月4日)堪称就是那一标志性时间的缩写。
If change takes place across decades,
如果改变跨越了数十年，
individual moments remind us what came before and how we got to where we are.
那一个个的时刻便提醒着我们那之前发生了什么，我们又是如何走到今天的。
So, with Americans celebrating their country at a time of widespread disagreement about what it stands for,
因此，在这个“美国”所代表的意义已经出现了广泛的分歧的时代，在全美人民欢庆祖国生日之际，
TIME asked top historians to nominate moments that resonate now—
《时代》周刊请最为杰出的历史学家提名了几个与当下共鸣最为强烈的时刻——
moments that just might serve as the menemonic devices the nation seems to need.
可以充当当下美国似乎正好需要的助记手段的时刻。
On these pages, several explain their choices.
有几位给出了他们选择那些时刻的原因。详见下文。
1954: The U.S. begins mass deportation of Mexican immigrants
1954年：美国开始了大规模驱逐墨西哥移民
In 1954, the federal government carried out one of its first mass deportations of Mexican immigrants from the U.S.
1954年，联邦政府展开了首批大规模驱逐美国境内的墨西哥移民行动。
Operation Wetback, as it was known, ended up separating parents from their children,
这场名为“湿背客行动”的方案拆散了家庭，
stranding deportees in the deserts of northern Mexico without food or water,
致使那些被驱逐的移民滞留在墨西哥北部没有水，也没有食物的沙漠里，
and damaging the U.S.’s reputation at home and abroad.
严重损害了美国在国内外的声誉。
For decades prior, the southwestern borderlands had prospered under a more luid, humane and practical deinition of boundaries,
在此之前的几十年里，西南边境地区，在当时更灵活、更人道，也更明智的边界划定政策下，一直颇为繁荣，
driven in large part by the wants and needs of the blended, binational border communities.
而这一繁荣很大程度上是边境上杂居的两国人民的需求所带动的。
In deference to these local interests, the federal government had resisted engaging in draconian deportation measures.
当时，考虑到当地利益，联邦政府一直拒绝采取严厉的驱逐措施。
Those reservations fell by the wayside as a wave of anti-Mexican animus, triggered by an economic recession,
然而，一场经济衰退引发了反墨西哥敌意浪潮，
led the Immigration and Naturalization Service to adopt a highly militarized approach to immigration law enforcement,
继而导致移民归化局开始采取高度军事化的移民执法方针，“湿背客行动”就是这一方针的核心产物，
with Operation Wetback at its center.
先前的保留政策便纷纷被弃置一旁。
Since 1954, mass deportations have become so routine that the American public now takes them for granted.
自1954年以来，大规模驱逐政策已经如此司空见惯，以至于美国公众现在已经认为理应如此。
We have forgotten that there was a time in U.S. history
我们已经忘记历史上有一段时期，
when the removal of hundreds of thousands of immigrants by the federal government was unthinkable.
联邦政府驱逐数十万移民根本是难以想象的事。
By S. Deborah Kang
本文作者黛博拉·康。
And Kang is an associate professor of history at California State University, San Marcos.
康是加州州立大学圣马科斯分校历史学副教授。
She is the author of The INS on the Line: Making Immigration Law on the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1917–1954
也是《移民归化局上线：制定美墨边境的移民法，1917–1954》一书的作者。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
