实战口语情景对话 第841期:The Big Mix 混合族裔

Todd: So CleAnn, you're from Trinidad and Tobago and you were saying that your country has a very diverse multicultural mix?
托德：科勒安，你来自特立尼达和多巴哥，你说过你们国家是多元文化混合的国家。

CleAnn: Yes.
科勒安：对。

Todd: Can you talk about that?
托德：你能详细说说吗？

CleAnn: Oh sure. Trinidad and Tobago mostly were made up of people from Africa (African descent) who came as slaves and Indians who came from India...mostly, I think we may also have some from parts of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, but they came as indentured laborers closer to when slavery was being abolished. These two groups actually make up the two largest ethnic groups in Trinidad. However, there is a lot of mixing. It's very difficult to find someone in Trinidad and Tobago who is extremely, purely of one ethnic group because everyone is sort of mixed. We have also a lot of whites or caucasians who are native to Trinidad and Tobago who speak exactly like me with my Caribbean accent and many people who find it very strange because they will walk around in Trinidad and think that they are tourists but realize that they are actually native Trinidadians. And many also come from Europe to settle in Trinidad after retirement and have their families here so this is how they came to stay here. We have a very large Chinese population and its growing because now the government is encouraging immigrants from China to come in to help us with our development, to build our capital city so we have a lot of Chinese. We have a lot of Colombians, Venezuelans, people coming from South and Central America migrating to Trinidad because Spanish is now being promoted as a second language for Trinidad so street signs in our capital city are in English and Spanish. So with all of this mixing of different people it's very, as I said, very difficult to find a person who is of just one ethnic group and it's reflected in our food, it's reflected in the kind of music we listen to, sometimes in the way we dress. For me, for example, I'm mostly of African descent but my dad is mixed with people from South American ethnicity and Chinese. So, as I said, although I'm mostly African, everybody still has a little bit of something in them.
科勒安：哦，好的。特立尼达和多巴哥人口主要由来自非洲（非洲裔）的奴隶和印度人组成，也有孟加拉国人、巴基斯坦人、斯里兰卡人，这些人是作为契约劳动力来到特立尼达和多巴哥的，他们到来时奴隶制已经快被废除。这两个群体组成了特立尼达两大少数族群。不过基本上是混合族裔。在特立尼达和多巴哥很难找到纯种人，因为各族裔之间是相互混合的。特立尼达和多巴哥也有本土白种人，这些人的口音和我的加勒比口音非常像，很多人认为这很奇怪，因为他们以为这些人是游客，结果却发现这些都是本土特立尼达和多巴哥人。也有很多欧洲人在退休后来到特立尼达定居，因为他们在这里有家人，所以他们就留了下来。我们国家的中国人也很多，而且人数还在不断增加，因为政府鼓励中国移民帮助我们发展、建造我们的首都，所以我们国家有很多中国人。我们国家也有很多哥伦比亚裔和委内瑞拉裔等来自中南美洲的移民，因为现在西班牙语是特立尼达的第二语言，我们首都街头有很多标志都是用英语和西班牙语写的。我刚才提到过，因为各族裔混合在一起，所以很难在我们国家找到纯种人，这一点也反映在我们的食物、音乐和我们的服装上。举个例子，我基本上是非洲裔，而我爸爸是南美和中国的混血。所以，如我刚才所说，虽然我基本上是非洲血统，但是所有人身上都或多或少有其他族裔的血统。