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【中文标题】中国政府的学校拨款分化南加州社区
【原文标题】Chinese gov't school grant divides SoCal community
【登载媒体】美联社稿，被多个媒体采用
【原文作者】JACOB ADELMAN
【来源地址】http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i7UrOWySx3ch7FGsXj87HpF-P8sQD9F9J0MO0
【原文库链接】http://bbs.m4.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&from=notice&tid=241156
【译者】rlsrls08
【翻译方式】人工
【声明】本翻译供Anti-CNN使用，未经AC或译者许可，不得转载。
中国政府的学校拨款分化南加州社区
2010年4月20日，洛杉矶哈仙达岗，西达琳中学的学生在上中国语言和文化课。
学生Bailey Lu 在学习折纸花。
12岁的Sarah Burchardt在帮助教数数。
西达琳中学的学生在上中国语言和文化课。
老师Angela Wang在教折纸。
加利福尼亚州哈仙达岗 - 波比 弗雷克反对她认为是来自太平洋另一边的险恶威胁。在她所住的南加州社区，那里有绿树成荫的街道和灰泥外观的房子。
在最近的一次学校董事会议，弗雷克和其他十几个反对者(年龄稍长，大多是白人)，坚决反对中国政府资助的中学语言课堂的计划。
“孩子们具有年轻的大脑，可塑性很大，他们可能被灌输美国不喜欢的观念。”弗雷克是一个身材矮小有褐色卷发的女人，她恳求董事会成员说。董事会今年1月批准了该计划。
横跨美国的社区，从罗得岛的士美非路，到俄勒冈州的梅德福，都张开双臂欢迎由中国政府资助的，所谓的孔子课堂。而西达琳中学反对的，正是这个计划。
孔子在哈仙达岗的旅程可没那么顺利。哈仙达岗是洛杉矶市中心以东大约16英里的一个中产阶级城镇，历史上曾有过长期居民和新到的华人居民之间的紧张种族关系。在校董事会中华人占大多数。
西达琳中学绝大多数学生是西班牙裔，根据国家统计数据，每五个学生中就有三个学生享受免费或减价午餐。这个数字说明了贫穷的程度。
这次吵闹预示着中国通过在全美国小学和初中开设语言课程，扩大文化影响力的努力遇到了麻烦。
“我敢肯定，这将成为一个标准的争议。”南加大公共政策教授尼古拉卡尔说。他一直关注中国通过象孔子学院这样的项目，努力在海外塑造自身形象的努力。 “美国人非常怀疑外来的东西。”
本地的反对者争论说该方案与共产主义有关，而洛杉矶中国领事馆教育办公室主任陈准民坚决否认。他说，孔子课堂和其他方案的建立是为了消除对中国的误解。
“我觉得本地居民的疑虑和不安主要是对中国历史和文化缺乏了解造成的。”他在一封电子邮件写道。
中国的语言教学机构-国家汉办的网站显示，在美国有60所孔子课堂和大学一级的孔子学院。每个都由教育机构和大学共同管理，这些机构和大学跟汉办签有协议。
位于纽约的亚洲协会计划在未来两年内帮助建立80所孔子课堂。单单在北卡罗莱纳州就计划开设额外45所。
这一扩张行动可能曝露了现有的文化和政治上的错误路线，正如在哈仙达岗，这里近几十年来经历了人口变化。
根据国家统计，1970年，哈仙达岗的居民几乎全是白人，亚裔不到百分之二。到2008年，经过几十年的华人移民，亚裔超过总人口的三分之一，与非西班牙裔白的比例一样。
新的民族和种族结构成为一连串社区纠纷的背景因素。
在20世纪80年代末，部分居民反对在圣盖博谷一处山坡建造一座大规模的佛教寺庙，修建寺庙乃是为了适应不断增长的亚裔社区的需求。反对者担心在庙里屠杀祭祀牲口，和上香者敲锣扰乱平静。
种族紧张局势对2003年的投票失败有一定的影响。该投票决定是否将洛杉矶县部分未被确认的城镇归为一个城市，而反对派扬言如果投票成功则哈仙达岗将被亚裔美国人占领。
围绕孔子课堂项目的争端似乎是同样的冲突。
“中国已经拥有并改变了哈仙达岗大部分的购物中心，”居民沙龙普卢斯在给圣盖博谷论坛报的信中写道。 “难道真的要他们改变我们孩子的头脑吗？”
根据与汉办的协议，哈仙达拉普恩特联合学区每年将得到3万美元，以及1000多本课本，光盘和其他教育材料，用于锡达兰学校的语言和文化课程。
该城市原本计划接受中国政府委派一名教师助理来锡达兰并支付教师的薪水。这是引发强烈抗议的一个序曲。
圣盖博谷论坛报的一篇社论称该计划“等于要求查韦斯(译者注: 委内瑞拉领导人)派他的干部来教授美国孩子经济学。”
学校董事会成员诺曼徐(译者注: 这里采用音译。中文名字是徐乃星)说，没必要小题大做，因为没有加州承认，(中国来的)老师不允许单独教学。
“我们为什么要火上浇油？”他说。
诺曼徐说，学区接受中国政府的提议，是因为知道锡达兰学校的语言课程需求扩大，而现金短缺的加州政府无力支付。
但反对者说他们会继续促使学区完全放弃(孔子课堂)方案。反对者一直参加学区的董事会会议，举着“要美国，不要孔子”的标语口号。
他们还表示他们将寻求推翻五人校董委员会的其中四人，他们在1月投票决定接受国家汉办的资助。
特雷莎马西亚斯是在董事会上表示关注和忧虑的董事之一，她坚持说她投反对票不是出于种族原因。
和其他批评者一样，马西亚斯说她没有孩子在学校中就读，但认为需要保护年轻人不受隐藏在课文内容中的共产主义宣传，母语非中文的人看不懂课文。
她说，她还对该方案以孔子和他2500年历史的哲学命名感到不安。
“你谷歌孔子的结果是一种宗教，”她说。 “看起来不太对。”
领事馆的陈准民不同意这种说法。
“众所周知，孔子基本上是一个哲学家和教育家，而不是一个宗教人士，”他说。
塞西尔考恩的女儿即将就读锡达兰，她理解批评者的关注，但准备用开放的心态去阅读孔子课堂的教材。她希望她的女儿学习些重要技能。
“我相信它的用意是融合我们的文化，给予孩子接触其他语言的机会，”她说。 “当他们长大，这只会增加他们的智慧和竞争力。”
简舒尔茨，锡达兰学校的历史教师，支持在她的学校开展该计划，因为她可以使用免费的课本来教授古代中国，而这是加州要求的。
“社区变了。可能这是抗议的一种方式 。”她说。 “(我们的社区变得)强硬，排外，不够理性，麦卡锡主义的阴影真的回来了。”
(译者注: 我不太明白最后一句话的意思，胡乱翻译的，请大家指正)
-----------------译者注: 美国的新闻稿子都是东一句西一句的，跟我们中文的书写习惯不一样。以上是一字一句的对照翻译，以下是我整理的大意:-----------------
在加利福尼亚州哈仙达岗最近的一次学校董事会议上，波比 弗雷克和其他十几个反对者(大多是白人)，坚决反对学校接受中国政府汉办资助的中学语言课堂的计划。她认为是那是来自太平洋另一边的险恶威胁。
弗雷克是一个身材矮小有褐色卷发的女人，她恳求董事会成员:“孩子们具有年轻的大脑，可塑性很大，他们可能被灌输美国不喜欢的观念。”。
反对者疑心中国政府通过隐藏在课本中的内容进行共产主义宣传，而洛杉矶中国领事馆教育办公室主任陈准民坚决否认。他说，孔子课堂的建立是为了消除对中国的误解。“我觉得本地居民的疑虑和不安主要是对中国历史和文化缺乏了解造成的。”
全美国许多地方都张开双臂欢迎由中国政府资助的，所谓的孔子课堂。中国的语言教学机构-国家汉办的网站显示，在美国有60所孔子课堂和大学一级的孔子学院。位于纽约的亚洲协会计划在未来两年内帮助建立80所孔子课堂。单单在北卡罗莱纳州就计划开设额外45所。
华人占多数的哈仙达岗学区董事会今年1月批准了该计划。 根据与汉办的协议，哈仙达拉普恩特联合学区每年将得到3万美元，以及1000多本课本，光盘和其他教育材料，用于锡达兰学校的语言和文化课程。以及委派一名教师助理。校董事成员之一徐乃星说，学校有需求，而现金短缺的加州政府无力支付，学区才接受中国政府的提议。
即将开设中文课的西达琳中学绝大多数学生是西班牙裔(也就是墨西哥人后代)，60%的学生吃免费午餐(说明比较穷)。
这次吵闹预示着中国通过在全美国小学和初中开设语言课程，扩大文化影响力的努力有了麻烦。
哈仙达岗是洛杉矶市中心以东大约16英里的一个中产阶级城镇，曾发生过白人老居民和华人新居民的矛盾。哈仙达岗近几十年来经历了人口变化。 1970年，哈仙达岗的居民几乎全是白人，亚裔不到百分之二。到2008年，亚裔超过总人口的三分之一，与非西班牙裔白人一样多。
新的民族和种族构成造成了一连串的社区纠纷。 在20世纪80年代末，部分居民反对在圣盖博谷一处山坡建造一座大规模的佛教寺庙。反对者担心在庙里屠杀祭祀牲口和上香者敲锣扰乱平静。 种族紧张局势对2003年的投票失败有一定的影响。该投票决定是否将洛杉矶县部分未被确认的城镇归为一个城市，而反对派扬言如果投票成功则哈仙达岗将被亚裔美国人占领。
“中国已经拥有并改变了哈仙达岗大部分的购物中心，”居民沙龙普卢斯在给圣盖博谷论坛报的信中写道。 “难道真的要他们改变我们孩子的头脑吗？”
反对者说他们会继续促使学区完全放弃(孔子课堂)方案。还表示他们将寻求推翻五人校董委员会的其中四人，这四个人在1月投赞成票决定接受国家汉办的资助。
唯一一个投反对票的是特雷莎马西亚斯(看名字象西裔)，她坚持说她投反对票不是出于种族原因。
特雷莎没有孩子在学校中就读，但认为需要保护年轻人不受隐藏在课文内容中的共产主义宣传。 她还对该方案以孔子命名感到不安。 “谷歌孔子，出来的结果是一种宗教，”她说。 “看起来不太对。”
领事馆的陈准民不同意这种说法。 “众所周知，孔子基本上是一个哲学家和教育家，而不是一个宗教人士。”
塞西尔考恩的女儿即将就读锡达兰，她理解批评者的关注，但准备用开放的心态去阅读孔子课堂的教材。她希望她的女儿学习些重要技能。 “我相信它的用意是融合我们的文化，给予孩子接触其他语言的机会，”她说。 “当他们长大，这只会增加他们的智慧和竞争力。”
简舒尔茨，一个锡达兰学校的历史教师，支持在她的学校开展该计划，因为她可以使用免费的课本来教授古代中国。
Chinese gov't school grant divides SoCal community
By JACOB ADELMAN (AP) – 2 days ago
HACIENDA HEIGHTS, Calif. — Bobby Fraker is taking a stand against what she perceives to be a sinister threat from across the Pacific, right here in her suburban Southern California community of tree-lined streets and stucco homes.
At a recent school-board meeting, Fraker and a dozen or more older, mostly white opponents of a Chinese government program that will fund a middle-school language class delivered fist-shaking denunciations.
"These children have young brains that are very malleable and they can be indoctrinated with things that America would not like," Fraker, a diminutive woman with tight auburn curls, implored board members, who approved the plan in January.
Communities across the United States, from Smithfield, R.I., to Medford, Ore., have welcomed with open palms the so-called Confucius Classroom grants from the Chinese government, like the one proposed here for Cedarlane Middle School.
But Confucius is not going down smoothly in Hacienda Heights, a middle-class town about 16 miles east of downtown Los Angeles with a history of racial tensions between longtime residents and relatively recent Chinese newcomers. Ethnic Chinese comprise the majority of the school board.
The Cedarlane student body, meanwhile, is overwhelmingly Hispanic, with three out of every five students at the school qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, a poverty indicator, according to state data.
The dustup may portend trouble for China's efforts to expand its cultural clout by bankrolling language programs in primary and secondary schools across the United States.
"I'm sure this will become a standard dispute," said University of Southern California public policy professor Nicholas Cull, who tracks China's efforts to shape its image abroad through programs like Confucius Classrooms. "People in America are very suspicious of ideas from the outside."
Chen Zhunmin, who directs the Chinese consulate's education office in Los Angeles, insisted the program has nothing to do with communism, as come of the local critics contend. He said Confucius Classroom and other programs were created to address misunderstandings about his country.
"I feel that the concerns of the neighbors are mainly caused by lack of understanding of Chinese history and culture," he wrote in an e-mail.
There are 60 Confucius Classroom and university-level Confucius Institute programs in the U.S., according to the Web site of China's language-teaching agency, the Hanban. Each is administered through a patchwork of educational organizations and universities that have deals with the agency.
The New York-based Asia Society plans to help set up another 80 Confucius Classrooms over the next two years. An additional 45 are separately planned in North Carolina alone.
The expansion into more communities could expose existing cultural and political fault lines, as it has in Hacienda Heights, a community that has undergone demographic change in recent decades.
In 1970, Hacienda Heights was less than 2 percent Asian and otherwise almost entirely white, according to state figures. By 2008, after decades of Chinese immigration into the region, Asians made up more than a third of the population, the same portion as the city's non-Hispanic whites.
The new ethnic and racial makeup has provided a backdrop for a spate of community disputes.
Some neighbors opposed construction of a massive Buddhist temple complex on a city hillside in the late 1980s to serve the growing Asian community in the San Gabriel Valley. Opponents feared animals would be sacrificed on the site and temple-goers would disturb the peace by banging gongs.
Racial tensions played a role in a failed 2003 ballot campaign to have the unincorporated part of Los Angeles County recognized as a city, with opponents whispering that an incorporated Hacienda Heights would be dominated by Asian-Americans.
The dispute over the Confucius Classroom program appears to be another such clash.
"China already owns and changed most of the shopping centers in Hacienda Heights," resident Sharon Pluth wrote in a letter to the town's closest newspaper, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. "Do we really want them to change our kids' minds, too?"
Under the deal with the Hanban, the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District is receiving $30,000 a year for language and culture programs at Cedarlane school, along with some 1,000 textbooks, CDs and other educational materials.
The city originally planned to accept an offer to have the Chinese government place a teaching assistant in Cedarlane and pay his or her salary, an overture that stoked strong resistance.
An editorial by the Tribune called the plan "tantamount to asking Hugo Chavez to send his cadres to teach little American kids economics."
School board member Norman Hsu said it wasn't worth pushing the issue, since, without California credentials, the teacher would not have been permitted to operate as a full-fledged instructor anyway.
"Why do we need to pour oil in the fire?" he said.
Hsu said the district accepted the Chinese government's offer because it knew that money for a needed expansion of its language program at Cedarlane would not be forthcoming from the cash-strapped state government.
But opponents, who have been attending school board meetings with signs bearing such slogans as "America, Not Confucius," say they'll keep pushing the district to abandon the program completely.
They also say they'll seek to unseat the four members of the five-person board that voted in January to accept the Hanban's offer.
Teresa Macias, one of those who voiced concerns at a recent board meeting, insisted her objections were not rooted in race.
Like other critics, Macias said she has no children in the school system, but feels the need to protect the community's youth from communist propaganda that could be hidden in textbook passages unreadable to non-Chinese speakers.
She said she's also concerned about the program's identification with Confucius and his 2,500-year-old philosophy.
"When you Google it, it comes up as a religion," she said. "It just seems wrong on so many levels."
Chen, from the Chinese consulate, dismissed that concern.
"It is a well-known fact that Confucius is basically a philosopher and educator, not a religious figure," he wrote.
Cecile Cowan, whose daughter is about to attend Cedarlane, understands critics' concerns, but plans to review the Confucius teaching materials with an open mind. She'd like her daughter to learn an important skill.
"I believe the whole idea behind it was sort of bringing our cultures together and exposing children to languages," she said. "It only adds to their intelligence and their marketability as they get older."
Jane Shults, a Cedarlane history teacher, supports the program on her campus because she can use the free texts to teach about ancient China, as mandated by the state.
"The community has changed. It could be that it's a way of protesting that," she said. "It's jingoistic, it's xenophobic, it's not overly rational and it's really shades of McCarthyism all over again."
刊登了该新闻的部分媒体:
FOX NEWS
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/24/chinese-govt-school-grant-divides-socal-community/
Kansascity
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/24/1899729/chinese-govt-school-grant-divides.html
Rapid City Journal
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/national/article_dbf6f67c-eeee-50bd-8614-fed06524a30b.html
Oregon Live
http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-41/1272136513237640.xml&storylist=new_topstories
CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/24/ap/national/main6428662.shtml
Seattle Pi
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_chinese_classroom_clash.html |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2010-4-27 23:06
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楼主
发表于 2010-4-29 16:14
