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I had a very front-row seat to that struggle.
而我正是這種感受的親歷者。
My family has been part of that struggle for a very long time.
我的家庭長期以來一直經歷著這種彷徨掙扎。
I come from a family that doesn't have a whole lot of money.
我生于一個不甚富裕的家庭。
The addiction that plagued my community also plagued my family, and even, sadly, my own mom.
而在我們社區，蔓延的毒品問題同樣傷害到了我的家庭，很不幸，是我的母親。
There were a lot of problems that I saw in my own family, problems caused sometimes by a lack of money,
我親眼見到了家里的很多問題，這些問題的起因，有的是因為缺錢，
problems caused sometimes by a lack of access to resources and social capital that really affected my life.
有的是因為缺乏社會資源和人脈，而這對我的影響很大。
If you had looked at my life when I was 14 years old and said, "Well, what's going to happen to this kid?"
如果你見過我14歲時過得怎么樣，并問到，“這孩子將來會怎么樣？”
you would have concluded that I would have struggled with what academics call upward mobility.
你也許會認為我會掙扎著往上爬，學術界管這叫“向上流動”。
So upward mobility is an abstract term, but it strikes at something that's very core at the heart of the American Dream.
向上流動是一個抽象的術語，但它觸及到了美國夢最核心的部分。
It's the sense, and it measures whether kids like me who grow up in poor communities are going to live a better life,
它是一個標準，能衡量那些像我一樣家境貧寒的孩子能不能過上好日子，
whether they're going to have a chance to live a materially better existence,
是不是有機會過上衣食無憂的生活，
or whether they're going to stay in the circumstances where they came from.
還是說會繼續貧窮下去。
And one of the things we've learned, unfortunately, is that upward mobility isn't as high as we'd like it to be in this country,
但不幸的是，我們了解到，在美國，向上流動并沒有我們想象的那么容易，
and interestingly, it's very geographically distributed. So take Utah, for instance.
而且有趣的是，它跟地域有很大的關系。就拿猶他州來說。
In Utah a poor kid is actually doing OK, very likely to live their share and their part in the American Dream.
在猶他州，一個窮孩子可能會過得還好，很有可能在美國夢中找到自己的位置。
But if you think of where I'm from, in the South, in Appalachia, in southern Ohio, it's very unlikely that kids like that will rise.
但如果在我的家鄉，南部的一些州，阿巴拉契亞地區，俄亥俄州南部，窮孩子可能就沒什么出路。
The American Dream in those parts of the country is in a very real sense just a dream.
從某種意義上來說，美國夢在這些地方可能真的就只是個夢。
