全球视野 | 打破刻板印象！美国版“变形计”产生了意想不到的共鸣

2全球视野

每周从全球各大与公益慈善或社会创新领域相关的媒体或专业网站，去浏览发现当下正在发生的案例和正在思考的观点，然后翻译整理成篇，传达第一手的新鲜资讯。栏目希望可以通过文章的视角或者表述，为会员伙伴们提供启发、打开视野。

文章《Urban and rural teens swap hometowns and are shocked by what they learn about each other/城市和乡村青少年互换家乡,他们对了解到的对方情况感到震惊》发布在洛杉矶时报（Los Angeles Times）上，作者是Veronica Roseborough。文章描述了一项名为American Exchange 项目的创新计划，该项目旨在打破美国城市与乡村青少年之间的刻板印象，促进他们之间的理解和友谊。这个计划通过让来自城市和农村的高中生相互交换家乡，体验彼此的生活方式，从而让他们亲身感受到对方生活中的真实情况，并揭示了他们对彼此的误解与刻板印象。

This summer a group of high school students brought a whole new meaning to foreign exchange programs. 

今年夏天，一群高中生为学生交换计划带来了全新的意义。 

Wendy Rojas of Koreatown immersed herself in Sioux Falls, S.D. Expecting to see Mt. Rushmore, she instead found herself setting the record straight about her hometown. No, she explained to locals, her neighborhood is not overrun with gangs and rife with gunfire like they’d seen in the movies. 

居住在洛杉矶韩国城的温迪·罗哈斯沉浸在南达科他州的苏福尔斯市的生活中。原本她期待着能够看到拉什莫尔山，但最终却发现自己在向当地人澄清有关自己家乡的错误认识。她告诉当地人，电影中所展示的那种黑帮横行和枪战不断的场景，并不是她的生活现实。 

Maggie Quine of Kilgore, Texas, was just as shocked with what she had to clarify to L.A. teens visiting her hometown. No, Texans don’t get around on horseback. 

对于得克萨斯州基尔戈尔市的玛吉·奎因来说，需要向到访她家乡的洛杉矶青少年澄清这件事，也让她感到惊讶。她告诉洛杉矶青少年们：不，得州人并不是都骑马出行的。 

Although Rojas and Quine didn’t need a passport for their trips, they might as well have traveled to a foreign land. In a novel program designed to break down entrenched stereotypes and spark lasting friendships, the American Exchange Project sent 13 urban L.A. teens to places like rural Arkansas, Ohio and South Dakota while 10 students from Texas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere arrived in Los Angeles. 

尽管罗哈斯和奎因的旅行不需要护照，但她们的体验就像是去到了国外一样。在一个旨在打破根深蒂固的刻板印象并激发持久友谊的创新项目中，American Exchange项目将13名洛杉矶市区的青少年送到了阿肯色州、俄亥俄州和南达科他州等乡村地区，而来自得克萨斯州、宾夕法尼亚州等地的10名学生则来到了洛杉矶。

“We’re trying to create a kind of antidote to prejudice by bringing together groups of young people who are very different from each other ... politically, racially, ethnically, culturally, socioeconomically, and providing them with experiences that help them humanize the other so that they don’t demonize them later,” said David McCullough III, the founder of the organization. 

该组织的创始人戴维·麦卡洛三世说：“我们试图创造一种消除偏见的良药，将政治、种族、民族、文化、社会经济等各方面都截然不同的年轻人聚集在一起，并为他们提供一些体验，帮助他们以人性化的态度看待对方，这样他们以后就不会妖魔化对方。”

The genesis of the program is rooted in a 2016 cross-country trip McCullough took as 22-year-old Yale student working on a research project, interviewing students and teachers in impoverished areas. In the throes of the polarizing 2016 Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton presidential race, McCullough said he expected to face some animosity. He was wary of the fact that people from different parts of the country might not welcome a stranger — let alone a white researcher from an elite East Coast institution. What he found was much different. 

该项目源于麦卡洛在2016年的一次全国旅行，当时22岁的耶鲁大学学生麦卡洛正在进行一个研究项目。他跨越全美国进行旅行，采访贫困地区的学生和教师。在2016年那次两极分化的唐纳德·特朗普与希拉里·克林顿的总统竞选时期，麦卡洛表示他预计可能会遇到一些敌意。他担心来自美国不同地区的人可能不欢迎一个陌生人，更别说他是一个来自东海岸精英机构的白人研究员了。但他的发现却大相径庭。 

In Cotulla, Texas, McCullough said his host family offered warm acceptance, taking him to church and giving him a tour of the town they were proud to call home. He soon met Kevin Coleman, a Texan who shared his love of cheeseburgers and Budweiser and they quickly became close friends. 

麦卡洛说，在得克萨斯州的科图拉，他的寄宿家庭热情地接纳了他，带他去教堂，带他参观他们引以为豪的家乡。很快，麦卡洛遇到了凯文·科尔曼，一个和他一样喜欢芝士汉堡和百威啤酒的得州人，他们很快就成了好朋友。 

They connected past their political differences, McCullough said, because they got to know each other as people first. 

麦卡洛说，他们之所以能够超越政治分歧建立联系，是因为他们首先是作为人来相互了解对方。 

“I care about Kevin because I care about Kevin,” McCullough said. “If there’s one thing that I learned from that, it’s that you can find some of your best friends in some very unlikely places — places that are different from your own.” 

麦卡洛说：“我关心凯文是因为我在乎凯文。如果说我从中学到了什么，那就是你可以在一些意想不到的地方找到你最好的朋友——那些与你自己不同的地方。”

He launched the American Exchange Project in 2019 with a few thousand dollars in funding, linking high school seniors from Albuquerque and Anchorage to Flowood, Miss., and Palo Alto, Calif. This year, McCullough said the nonprofit sent its 1000th student on exchange with funding from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Hearthland Foundation and other contributors. 

2019年，麦卡洛启动了American Exchange项目，初始资金只有几千美元。项目旨在将新墨西哥州的阿尔伯克基和阿拉斯加州的安克雷奇的高年级学生，与密西西比州的弗洛伍德和加利福尼亚州的帕洛阿托联系起来。麦卡洛说，在凯特·卡普肖和史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格的Hearthland基金会以及其他捐助者的资助下，该非营利组织在今年送出了第1000名学生进行交流。 

Downtown Magnets High School is one of 54 high schools participating in the exchanges and the first in Southern California. Rojas is one of 500 traveling students, the biggest group yet for the program. When she joined other project students and host families for pizza in Sioux Falls, she expected to learn more about the place she would call home for the next week. 

Downtown Magnets高中是参加交换活动的54所高中之一，也是南加州第一所参加的高中。温迪·罗哈斯是500名旅行学生中的一员，这也是该项目迄今为止规模最大的一个旅行团。当她与其他项目学生和寄宿家庭一起在苏福尔斯吃披萨时，她期待能了解更多关于苏福尔斯，这个接下来一周她将称之为家的地方。 

Instead, she found herself confronting stereotypes when she described Sioux Falls as “quieter” than Koreatown. 

相反，当她形容苏福尔斯比韩国城“安静”时，她发现自己正面临着刻板印象。 

“No more gunshots right?” another host family member asked. “Maybe we’ll shoot outside your window to make you feel at home,” they joked. 

“不会再有枪声了，对吧？”另一位寄宿家庭成员问道。他们开玩笑说：“也许我们会在你窗外开枪，让你有家的感觉。” 

They continued, asking her about gangs and if she knew any gang members. 

他们继续问罗哈斯关于帮派的问题，以及她是否认识任何帮派成员。 

“I’ve never really seen anything,” Rojas told them, taken aback by the assumption. “I did explain to them sometimes you will see the gang markings on walls but you don’t really see a group of guys pulling up like in the movies … that’s not really real.” 

罗哈斯对寄宿家庭所说的这种假想感到吃惊，并告诉他们：“我从没见过任何帮派成员。我确实向他们解释过，有时你会在墙上看到帮派标记，但你不会看到一群人像电影里那样聚集起来……那并不是真实的。” 

Instead, she explained, it is the hustle and bustle of her apartment-dense neighborhood that makes Koreatown lively — the chatter of neighbors, the honks of traffic and the occasional squealing of a street race — not gangs and gunshots. 

相反，罗哈斯解释说，是她所在公寓密集社区的熙熙攘攘使韩国城充满活力——邻里的闲聊、车辆的喇叭声和偶尔传来的街头赛车轰鸣声，而不是帮派和枪声。 

Though shocked, Rojas brushed off the comment as a bad stereotype — one she had hopefully busted — and continued on with her week getting to know students who were interested in learning about her, not just where she was from. 

尽管感到震惊，罗哈斯将这句话当作一种糟糕的刻板印象。她希望自己已经打破了这种刻板印象，然后继续度过她的一周，结识那些不仅对她的背景感兴趣，还希望了解她个人的学生。 

Rojas said she learned her peers wanted to be engineers and doctors, and she shared plans to study biotechnology at Cal Poly Pomona. While they may think differently from her, they all want to find a way to contribute to the world, she said. 

罗哈斯说，她了解到她的同龄人都想成为工程师和医生，她也计划在加州州立理工大学波莫纳分校学习生物技术。她说，虽然他们的想法可能与她不同，但他们都想找到一种方法为世界做出贡献。 

As the week came to a close, Rojas found herself at a barbecue with the same local host family. But this time, the conversation was different. They asked Rojas to tell them about the L.A. she knows, which gave her a chance to describe the different cultures she encounters on a daily basis. They found common ground in the close-knit nature of both their communities, she said. 

随着一周即将结束，罗哈斯与同一个当地寄宿家庭一起参加了烧烤聚会。但这次，谈话内容不同。他们请罗哈斯介绍她所了解的洛杉矶，这让她有机会描述她每天遇到的不同文化。罗哈斯说，他们在两个社区的紧密联系中找到了共同点。 

“We have our own perceptions of different places and different people but I feel like when we come together like this and we talk face to face, there is always a connection,” Rojas said. “Even if we disagree on maybe our political views or whatever, we can find something in common.” 

罗哈斯说：“我们对不同的地方和不同的人，有自己的看法。但我觉得，当我们像这样聚到一起，面对面交谈时，总会有一种联系。即使我们在政治观点或其他方面存在分歧，我们也能找到共同点。” 

Landing back in Los Angeles, Rojas joined fellow Downtown Magnets students in welcoming 10 visiting students for their first meal together. As they sat around a table full of strangers, it was the L.A. students who were first to break the silence, sharing stories of their own exchanges and eager to learn about the hometowns of their peers. 

回到洛杉矶后，罗哈斯与Downtown Magnets高中的同学们一起欢迎了10位来访的学生，共进他们一起的第一餐。当他们围坐在满是陌生人的餐桌旁时，洛杉矶的学生首先打破了沉默，他们分享了自己的交换故事，并渴望了解同学们的家乡。 

The initial nerves calmed throughout the week as the students visited Griffith Observatory, sampled Grand Central Market eateries and got lost in a sea of blue at a Dodgers game. 

经过一周的时间，最初的紧张情绪逐渐平复，因为学生们参观了格里菲斯天文台、品尝了中央市场美食，并迷失在了道奇队比赛的蓝色海洋之中。 

Evelyn Moctezuma of Scranton, Pa., got to see the ocean for the first time. Da’Kenzi Robinson of Paris, Texas, successfully rode the Metro. And Quine felt she could be anyone she wanted to be in a city where no one seemed to judge or even pay attention to her, a stark contrast to her hometown where everyone knows everyone else’s business. 

来自宾夕法尼亚州斯克兰顿的伊芙琳·莫克特祖玛第一次看到了大海。来自得克萨斯州巴黎的达肯齐·罗宾逊成功乘坐了地铁。玛吉·奎因觉得在这座城市里，她可以成为任何她想成为的人，似乎没有人对她评头论足，甚至没有人关注她，这与她的家乡形成了鲜明的对比。在她的家乡，每个人都知道别人的事情。 

By week’s end, it seemed like the group could talk about anything — politics, race, their shared love of Spongebob, Robinson said. 

罗宾逊说，到了周末，这个小组似乎可以谈论任何话题：政治、种族、他们对海绵宝宝的共同爱好。

“When Joe Biden had posted that he was resigning, we were on the Metro and then we all just started talking about it,” Robinson said. “You wouldn’t think that you could just have a regular conversation about that but it felt good to not have to be on a side.” 

罗宾逊说：“当乔·拜登发帖宣布他将退选的消息时，我们正在地铁上，然后大家就开始谈论这件事。你想不到你可以就这个话题，进行一场正常的对话。不过不必选择站在一边的感觉很好。” 

These are the kinds of experiences that can change the way students think about others who hold different views, McCullough said. And along the way, he added, he hoped that they would make some friends, just like he did. 

麦卡洛表示，这些经历能够改变学生对持不同观点的人的看法。麦卡洛补充说，他希望学生们在这个过程中能够结交一些朋友，就像他当初做的那样。 

“We’re defining people by fractions of who they are ... we’re pretending that because we know one of their views, we know all of their views, which is very rarely true,” McCullough said. “The trip had me appreciate the complexity of all people and taught me how to navigate nuance — brought a world that’s not at all black and white very much into color — and that’s what we’re trying to do for these kids.” 

麦卡洛说：“我们根据人们的一小部分来定义他们……我们只因为知道了他们的一个观点，就自认为知道了他们所有的观点，但事实并非如此。那次旅行让我开始更加欣赏人的复杂性，并教会了我如何处理细微差别。把一个非黑即白的世界变成了色彩斑斓的世界，这就是我们试图为这些孩子做的事情。” 

McCullough added that he plans to continue expanding the project until a senior exchange is as commonplace as senior prom in hopes of building a “more connected country.” 

麦卡洛还说，他计划继续扩大该项目，直到高年级学生交流像高中毕业舞会一样普遍，并希望建立一个“联系更紧密的国家”。