VOA标准英语2010年-Gulf Coast's Asian Communities Hit Har

Hampered¹ by language barrier, seafood² industry workers face uncertain future

Anna Boiko-Weyrauch | Bayou La Batre, Alabama 04 June 2010
 

Von Wesson (middle, in blue cap) and her fellow workers are paid by the pound of crab³ meat they clean from the shells. With fewer crabs⁴ coming in, they're earning less money.

With large sections of the Gulf⁵ of Mexico still closed to fishing due to the massive oil leak, workers in the seafood industry have been hurt all along the southern coast of the United States.

A large portion of workers in Alabama's seafood capital originally hail from Southeast Asia, and they face cultural barriers that make coping with the disaster even more difficult.

Long process

It's 6:45 a.m., and hundreds of people are lined up in front of BP's compensation office in the small Alabama town of Bayou La Batre.

They are filing claims of lost income so they can get $5,000 from the giant oil company to pay their bills.

The air is humid and a breeze rolls in from the sea.

Sue Athanasay brought her grandkids and some plastic chairs to sit in while they wait. It's a long wait. They got in line at four in the morning and the office won't open until seven.

Athanasay, originally from Laos, plans to file paperwork for her pregnant daughter, who works in a crab processing plant.

A one-third of residents in Bayou La Batre is from Southeast Asia. Many of them work processing seafood caught in the Gulf of Mexico. In a refrigerated workshop, employees from Laos and Thailand in blue aprons⁶ crack crab shells over and over for up to 12 hours a day.

Lost income

Von Wessen, who came to Alabama from Laos when she was three years old, explains that processing the seafood is a skill.

"You have to learn it because if you don't do it right you'll have a lot of bones and a lot of broken pieces."

She and the other workers are paid by the pound of crab meat they clean from the shells, not by the hour. With fewer crabs coming in, it means less money for them.

"This is like our peak season," she says, "so usually we'll be working a full day. And we're only working a few hours, like five or six hours. So it's cut our income down significantly."

 

Employees, many from Laos and Thailand, crack crab shells for up to 12 hours a day in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.

Language barrier limits opportunity

With income down, many are applying for compensation from BP, or signing on to help clean up the oil spill.

But all the forms and training are in English, so Wesson and her peers have been translating more and more for older members of the community. "In one way or another, they've helped me throughout the years, so I don't mind helping⁷ them back," she says.

Many immigrants on the coast struggle to communicate in English.

Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang heads Boat People SOS, an organization that advocates for Southeast Asians in the United States.

He says a lot of people who fled here after the Vietnam War eventually ended up in the seafood industry on the Gulf of Mexico.

"They figure out that this is among the very few jobs that they can find employment in," says Thang. "Because they don't speak English that well and therefore they don't have too many choices."

Thang points out that poor English skills make it harder for Southeast Asian immigrants to leave town and transition into other jobs.

"They may not even qualify for job training programs and placement programs and most of them don't have any relatives around here or across the country so most of them are kind of stuck here."

Bleak⁸ outlook

Kimchi Thai is facing that bleak prospect⁹.

She came to the U.S. from Vietnam 19 years ago. She works on her uncle's shrimping boat, supporting her children and her mother. Now, with no fishing allowed, she is out of work.

Thai doesn't know how to keep going when most of her knowledge revolves¹⁰ around seafood and the ocean. She wants to know how is she supposed to find another job with no other skills.

Thai says all she can do is just wait to see if help will come. She filed a compensation claim with BP, getting a friend to help her with the English-only forms.

Uncertain future

The U.S. seafood industry has been declining for a number of years now, according to Thang of Boat People SOS. He says competition from imported seafood and rising fuel costs have made it harder and harder for people to make a living from the ocean.

"This catastrophe¹¹ expedites that process," he says. "We've been thinking of finding alternatives to jobs in the fishing industry. We haven't found the solution yet but we've been working on it even before the oil spill."

Back in the crab factory, Von Wesson slices into a small red crab with a sharp knife and hopes for the best. "With the oil spill, we don't know the effect of it yet. It's not like a hurricane, you know, you get to see the effect right away. It might affect us for years and we just don't know it yet."

For many workers, the only choice is to wait and see what happens. Right now, the future and livelihoods¹² of this community are as murky¹³ as the crude oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
 

1 hampered   

妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The search was hampered by appalling weather conditions. 恶劣的天气妨碍了搜寻工作。
• So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. 圣彼德堡镇的那些受折磨、受拘束的体面孩子们个个都是这么想的。

2 seafood   

n.海产食品，海味，海鲜

参考例句：

• There's an excellent seafood restaurant near here.离这儿不远有家非常不错的海鲜馆。
• Shrimps are a popular type of seafood.小虾是比较普遍的一种海味。

3 crab   

n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气

参考例句：

• I can't remember when I last had crab.我不记得上次吃蟹是什么时候了。
• The skin on my face felt as hard as a crab's back.我脸上的皮仿佛僵硬了，就象螃蟹的壳似的。

4 crabs   

n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• As we walked along the seashore we saw lots of tiny crabs. 我们在海岸上散步时看到很多小蟹。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The fish and crabs scavenge for decaying tissue. 鱼和蟹搜寻腐烂的组织为食。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

6 aprons   

围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份）

参考例句：

• Many people like to wear aprons while they are cooking. 许多人做饭时喜欢系一条围裙。
• The chambermaid in our corridor wears blue checked gingham aprons. 给我们扫走廊的清洁女工围蓝格围裙。

7 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

8 bleak   

adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的

参考例句：

• They showed me into a bleak waiting room.他们引我来到一间阴冷的会客室。
• The company's prospects look pretty bleak.这家公司的前景异常暗淡。

9 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

10 revolves   

v.（使）旋转( revolve的第三人称单数 )；细想

参考例句：

• The earth revolves both round the sun and on its own axis. 地球既公转又自转。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Thus a wheel revolves on its axle. 于是，轮子在轴上旋转。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

12 livelihoods   

生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者，他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小，他们的传统生计受到了威胁。

13 murky   

adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗

参考例句：

• She threw it into the river's murky depths.她把它扔进了混浊的河水深处。
• She had a decidedly murky past.她的历史背景令人捉摸不透。