她的丈夫去世后,她乘火車前往女兒家探望,
and she met and took an interested in a light-skinned man in the same railway car.
她在火車上遇見(jiàn)一個(gè)膚色很淡的男青年,并對(duì)他產(chǎn)生好感。
What happened next is something that Aunt Joan told only my mother years later, with the greatest of shame.
但接下來(lái)發(fā)生的事情,瓊阿姨說(shuō)在幾年后只對(duì)我的母親說(shuō)過(guò),她覺(jué)得非常羞愧。
When she got off the train, she walked right by her daughter, disowning her own flesh and blood,
當(dāng)走下火車,她走在女兒的右邊,因?yàn)樗呐畠簺](méi)有繼承她的膚色基因,
because she did not want a man so light-skinned and desirable to know that she had borne a daughter so dark.
她不想一個(gè)如此可愛(ài)的白人男青年知道她生了個(gè)這么黑的女兒。
In the 1960s, my mother wrote a book about her experiences.
20世紀(jì)60年代,我的母親寫了一本關(guān)于她人生經(jīng)歷的書(shū),
It was entitled Brown Face, Big Master, the "Brown Face" referring to herself and the "Big Master" referring, in the Jamaica dialect, to God.
書(shū)名為《棕色面孔,大主人》。“棕色面孔”是指她自己,“大主人”在牙買加方言中是指上帝的意思。
At one point, she describes a time just after my parents were married when they were living in London and my eldest brother was still a baby.
有一次,她寫到她和我父親到倫敦生活,那是他們剛結(jié)婚不久,我的大哥還是一個(gè)嬰兒。
They were looking for an apartment, and after a long search, my father found one in a London suburb.
他們正在找公寓,找了很久也沒(méi)有找到,后來(lái)我的父親在倫敦郊區(qū)找到一所公寓。
On the day after they moved in, however, the landlady ordered them out.
但是,就在他們搬進(jìn)來(lái)的第二天,房東太太命令他們搬走。
"You didn't tell my your wife was Jamaican," she told my father in a rage.
“你沒(méi)有告訴我,你的妻子是牙買加人。”她很憤怒地對(duì)我的父親說(shuō)。
In her book, my mother describes her long struggle to make sense of this humiliation, to reconcile her experience with her faith.
在書(shū)中,我的母親描述了她長(zhǎng)期與這種侮辱進(jìn)行的思想斗爭(zhēng),以便使她的經(jīng)歷與她的信仰協(xié)調(diào)。
In the end, she was forced to acknowledge that anger was not an option,
最后,她不得不接受的事實(shí)是,憤怒不是解決辦法。
that as a colored Jamaican whose family has benefited for generations from the hierarchy of race,
作為一個(gè)有色人種的牙買加人,一個(gè)種族階級(jí)世代傳承的家庭,
she could hardly reproach another for the impulse to pide people by the shade of their skin.
她幾乎無(wú)法再責(zé)備他人按膚色劃分人的地位高低: