金融時報:美國“夢想家”面臨困境

美國“夢想家”面臨困境

2012年，奧巴馬政府出臺“童年抵美者暫緩遣返”計劃，讓大量兒時來美的無證移民能夠免遭遣返，并獲得工作許可。如今，特朗普政府卻在考慮廢除這一計劃。受惠于該計劃的年輕無證移民兒時被父母帶到美國，并在美國長大，但如今，他們可能會被遣返回一個陌生的“祖國”，他們該何去何從？

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

fret[fret] v.煩惱，不滿

deliberate[d?'l?b?r?t] vi.仔細(xì)考慮

legislation[?led??s'le??n] n.立法，法律

instill[?n'st?l] v.滴注，逐漸灌輸

quintessential [?kw?nt?'sen?l] adj.精粹的

deport[d?'p??t] vt.驅(qū)逐出境

California ‘Dreamers’ nervously await Trump decision(648 words)

By Chloe Cornish

At 7:30am on a sunny Saturday in California’s Menlo Park, the corporate home of Facebook, Karina, a Mexican-born Silicon Valley project manager squeezed in breakfast before a boxing class, and fretted about a decision being taken 5,000km away.

In Washington DC, US President Donald Trump deliberated over whether to fulfil a campaign promise to revoke a piece of Obama-era legislation that gave undocumented migrants, brought to the US illegally as children by their parents such as Karina, temporary rights to work and study in the US.

Soon, 22-year-old Karina — who declined to use her full name for fear of identifying her illegal immigrant parents — will know whether she could be deported to Mexico, a country she left aged three.

But Karina and 790,000 other so-called Dreamers who have benefited from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) scheme have a local ally — tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief executive.

The tech lobbying group FWD.us, co-founded by Mr Zuckerberg, sent an open letter to Mr Trump last week signed by 384 business leaders, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s Tim Cook.

Mr Zuckerberg, who has mentored Dreamers in East Palo Alto near Facebook’s headquarters — where Karina grew up sharing one bed with both her parents and older brother — called for a permanent legislative solution for allowing Dreamers to stay.

“These young people represent the future of our country and our economy,” he wrote on Facebook.

California has approved more than 220,000 young undocumented people to Daca, while second-highest Texas has approved 124,000.

Karina, who works for a biotech company, believes Dreamers such as herself are a valuable asset to fast-moving, hard-driving tech businesses.

“They really value strong work ethic and they see that in the Dreamers . . . Against all obstacles, they’re crushing it,” she says.

This is not the only fight tech companies have with the White House over immigration. Valley businesses fear that tighter immigration controls could curb their access to talent.

According to government data analysed by Collaborative Economics, 57 per cent of tech workers in Silicon Valley were born abroad. Only 18 per cent come from the state itself.

But while Karina was born outside the US, her life has been closely bound to California’s economy. When she was growing up her parents worked so many night shifts — her father as a construction worker, her mother doing photocopying for attorneys — that Karina would go days without seeing them.

Their hard work eventually earned them a house in the nicer neighbourhood of Menlo Park, but they lost it in the real estate crash of 2007 and were bounced straight back to East Palo Alto.

She says that upbringing has instilled in her what she sees as quintessentially American values of self-improvement through work. Now her older brother is studying to become an accountant, while their 11-year-old brother is into robotics and already participating in competitions at Nasa.

“I got through college and landed this really great job, and its something I could never do back home,” she says. “That’s the beauty of this country . . . you can make a change.”

While at university, Karina would get up at 5am to babysit children whose parents started work early, some at tech groups, then drive a different child to school before attending her college classes. To pay her bills, she also had a housekeeping job that finished at 10pm.

But polling data suggest many Americans are worried about immigration — 41 per cent of those polled by Gallup in 2016 said they were “very dissatisfied” with the level of immigration — and Mr Trump’s hardline stance does have support.

Some comments below Mr Zuckerberg’s pro-Dreamer post reflected anti-immigration hostility.

“People who jump over fences and enter this country illegal are not dreamers they are criminals and should be deported!” wrote commenter Ginger Green.

Mr Zuckerberg replied: “It’s tough to jump over a fence when you’re one or two years old.”

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.According to the article, the Daca ____.

A. gives undocumented migrants arrived in the US as children temporary rights to work and study.

B. allows illegal immigrants who entered the country as children to get permanent residency.

C. gives undocumented foreign students in the US eligibility for a two-year period of work permit.

D. was introduced in the Senate by tech lobbying group FWD.us including 384 business leaders.

答案(1)

2.Which of the following statements about Karina is true?

A. She was born in Mexico and brought to the US by her parents in the Obama era.

B. She could be deported to Mexico once Trump decides to revoke Daca on Tuesday.

C. She is a project manager in a biotech company which is located in East Palo Alto.

D. She moved to Menlo Park together with her family after the real estate crash of 2007.

答案(2)

3.Which state in the US has the approved the most young undocumented people to Daca ?

A. Florida.

B. New York.

C. Texas.

D. California.

答案(3)

4.Many Silicon Valley companies worried about Trump's immigration controls because____.

A. immigrants reduce labor shortages in low- and high-skilled markets.

B. they really value the strong work ethic they see in the illegal immigrants.

C. tighter immigration controls could curb their access to foreign-born talent.

D. 57 per cent of tech workers in Silicon Valley are illegal immigrants.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：A.gives undocumented migrants arrived in the US as children temporary rights to work and study.

解釋：“童年入境暫緩遣返計劃”讓童年來美的非法移民獲得短期的工作和學(xué)習(xí)許可。

(2) 答案：B.She could be deported to Mexico once Trump decides to revoke Daca on Tuesday.

解釋：特朗普將在周二決定是否撤銷Daca，一旦Daca被取消，Karina可能被遣返回墨西哥。

(3) 答案：D.California.

解釋：加州已經(jīng)批準(zhǔn)了220000個Daca申請者，第二多的是得州，有124000人。

(4) 答案：C.tighter immigration controls could curb their access to foreign-born talent.

解釋：57%的硅谷科技從業(yè)者出生在國外。硅谷的公司擔(dān)心日趨嚴(yán)格的移民控制將會限制他們招攬人才。

中國式愛情保險

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

policy(of insurance) n.保險單

matrimony['mætr?m?n?] n.婚禮；婚姻生活

surrender value 退還金額，退保金額

malleable['mæl??b(?)l] adj.可鍛的；可塑的；易適應(yīng)的

litmus test 石蕊試驗；立見分曉的檢驗辦法

When insurance is a girl’s best friend (774 words)

One of the advantages of not having an insurance industry with hundreds of years of continuous history is that you get to make things up as you go along. So for last Thursday’s “Qixi”, or Chinese Valentine’s day, mainland insurance companies offered “love insurance” – for the spouse who has everything. The policies bear different names and different terms – they may be life policies, accident policies, medical or endowment insurance – but all are marketed as the perfect alternative to chocolates and flowers. Some offer returns linked to length of matrimony. And many stipulate that only the woman can collect on them.

Of course “insurance” is largely in the eye of the beholder, in any society: in the west, diamonds are not just a girl’s best friend, they are also a girl’s best insurance policy. In these days of upside-down mortgages, at least the ring has a surrender value higher than zero.

But in China, notions of risk and how to insure against it are even more malleable: after decades when citizens relied on a combination of children and communism to take care of them when things got rough, insurance penetration is still exceptionally low, even to protect against those staples of Chinese life, illness and car accidents.

Chinese insurance companies offer a baffling array of policies, from life policies with health insurance riders, to “love” policies with accident riders, to endowment policies with annual wedding anniversary bonuses – with a big lump sum if the couple gets to golden. Insurance brokers say last year’s reinterpretation of the Chinese marriage law – which appears to favour men over women by awarding the family home to the party whose parents bought it (usually the groom) – has boosted demand from women for policies to underwrite marital bliss.

During last week’s Qixi, or Seventh Night festival, which occurs on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, some men dangled love insurance in front of their wives as a token of undying affection, according to a broker peddling Valentine insurance imaginatively labelled Red Rose. But these days, not only romantic or guilt-struck mates are coughing up for such policies: even parents-in-law are buying them as a wedding gift to make the bride feel she is a valued member of her new family.

One woman in northern China’s Hubei province posted on her microblog the paperwork for an accident insurance policy procured on her behalf by her boyfriend (her appreciation apparently boosted by the fact that a recent car accident had landed her in hospital without private accident insurance). And a Chinese newspaper quoted a wife saying she considers the Valentine policy purchased by her husband as a “guarantee for their marriage”.

Another wife, who posted her views in a popular Chinese internet forum, seemed to see the purchase of matrimonial insurance as a litmus test for the relationship: she asked her husband to buy such a policy, but he was lukewarm – leaving her worried that his passion had cooled.

In fact, such policies have more to do with divorce than marriage, say brokers who sell them. The reinterpretation of the marriage law – which overturned the practice of routinely giving jilted wives half of property purchased by the husband before marriage – spawned a new industry in insurance policies that pay only the wife upon divorce. One recipient of such a policy wrote online that it made her feel secure. “If something bad happens to my marriage, the surrender value does not become community property, but all goes to the wife,” she said.

To judge from recent figures showing a sharp rise in HIV/Aids among middle-aged men in China, it may not be a moment too soon to invest in a bit of matrimonial underwriting. Beijing’s National Centre for HIV/STD Control and Prevention said last week that China was unique worldwide in showing a big rise in new infections among male pensioners. Affordable prostitution – coupled with the attitude that pensioners are already so old that they worry little about developing HIV/Aids five or 10 years down the line – has contributed to this outbreak, the government says. In 2005, only 2.2 per cent of newly diagnosed carriers were over 60; five years later that rate had quadrupled.

Rising wealth is driving this: but these days middle-class Chinese can afford not just more prostitutes, but more fried food, more sugar and more hours in front of the television. Maybe Chinese mums should stop insisting that their sons-in-law buy a flat before marriage – and start insisting they buy private medical insurance. That will doubtless be the next frontier for the Chinese insurance industry: underwriting the diseases of Chinese prosperity.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.Which of the following is not true about “love insurance”?

A. These policies bear different names – like life policies, accident policies, medical or endowment insurance.

B. Some of them offer returns linked to length of mariage.

C. Notions of risk and how to insure against it are relatively new in China.

D. For these policies, men and women usually have the same claim on them.

答案(1)

2.Which of the following word can replace "lukewarm"?

("she asked her husband to buy such a policy, but he was lukewarm – leaving her worried that his passion had cooled"--the 7th paragraph)

A. warm

B. sympathy

C. indifferent

D. furious

答案(2)

3.According to the passage, what is correct about "the reinterpretation of the marriage law"?

A. In China, the groom's parents usually purchase a house for the newlywed.

B. It seems to favour men over women.

C. It has boosted demand from women for policies.

D. All the above is correct.

答案(3)

4.What does the writer mean by saying "underwriting the diseases of Chinese prosperity" in the last paragraph?

A. People usually underestimate the problems of China's prosperity.

B. There are serious problems concerning Chinese economy.

C. Chinese insurance industry can help deal with the diseases.

D. All kinds of diseases are arriving at middle-class Chinese, as they are getting richer.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：D.For these policies, men and women usually have the same claim on them.

解釋：ABC三項都是正確的。作者在文中多次強(qiáng)調(diào)很多"love insurance"是規(guī)定受益人只能是女方的。如第一段最后一句： And many stipulate that only the woman can collect on them.

(2) 答案：C. indifferent

解釋：lukewarm的意思是冷淡的；不夠熱心的，微溫的。

(3) 答案：D.All the above is correct.

解釋：ABC三項都是正確的。原文第四段中說： last year’s reinterpretation of the Chinese marriage law – which appears to favour men over women by awarding the family home to the party whose parents bought it (usually the groom) – has boosted demand from women for policies…

(4) 答案：D.All kinds of diseases are arriving at middle-class Chinese, as they are getting richer.

解釋：underwrite的意思是vt.給...保險；承諾支付；vi. 經(jīng)營保險業(yè)，而不是低估。結(jié)合前兩段來看，作者的意思是，隨著中國人變得富裕，各種“富貴病”也越來越多。