来自监狱的毕业演讲
Writing a graduation speech is a tricky task.
要写好一篇毕业典礼上的演讲并非易事。
Should you be funny, or sincere?
你应该幽默一些，还是真诚一点呢？
Tell a story — or offer advice?
是讲个故事——还是提点建议？
For Yusef Pierce, a graduating senior in California, the job of putting together his public address was a bit more challenging.
对加州的一名大四学生尤瑟夫·皮尔斯来说，准备一篇公开演讲的工作就更有挑战性了。
"Being inside, I can't really refer to other graduation speeches," Pierce says.
“在监狱里，我没法去查阅别人的毕业典礼供参考，”皮尔斯说道。
He's speaking by phone from inside the California Rehabilitation Center, a medium-security prison in Norco.
他在加州康复中心接受电话采访，这是诺尔科的一个中等安全级别的监狱。
"I was just trying to come up with what sounded like a graduation speech."
我只想写出一个听起来像样的毕业演讲。”
He is the first person to graduate with a bachelor's degree from the Inside-Out program at Pitzer College, a liberal arts school outside Los Angeles.
他是第一个从皮策学院的“内外”项目获得学士学位的人，皮策学院是洛杉矶城外的一所文科学院。
In a normal year, the school would bring traditional students by bus to the prison to take classes alongside the students who are in prison.
在正常年份，学校会把传统的学生乘公共汽车带到监狱，与监狱里的学生一起上课。
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, those classes are happening online.
而因为疫情的缘故，这些课改成了线上进行。
Pierce shared his Zoom square with 10 other guys, all wearing the CRC's blue uniforms and seated at those classic classroom desks, where the chair and the table are attached.
皮尔斯与另外十人一起上课，所有人都穿着CRC的蓝色制服，坐在那些经典的课桌前，椅子和桌子都是连着的。
This spring, his classes included topics like feminism for men, microeconomics and mass incarceration.
今年春天，他的课程包括男性中的女权主义、微观经济学和大规模监禁等主题。
In one of those classes on a recent evening this spring, professor Nigel Boyle goes around asking each student what they're looking forward to doing that week.
今年春天的一个晚上，在其中一节课上，奈杰尔·博伊尔教授四处询问每个学生，他们本周想做什么。
Pierce replies: "I'm looking forward to doing a lot of homework!"
皮尔斯回答说：“我希望做完一堆家庭作业！”
"Every professor wants a Yusef in your class," says Boyle, who leads the Inside-Out program and teaches Pierce's Wednesday night class about mass incarceration.
博伊尔说:“每个教授都想在你的课堂上看到一个尤塞夫。”博伊尔领导着“内外”项目，并在皮尔斯周三晚上的课上教授大规模监禁这门课。
"You want that student who's bright, does the work, but is also helping to bring along the others."
“你想要的是一个既聪明又用功的学生，同时还能帮助带动其他人。”
It was only natural then that Pierce would be one of the college's graduation speakers.
所以自然而然地，皮尔斯就成了这所大学的毕业典礼发言人。
"We don't label the student speaker as a valedictorian," explains Boyle.
“我们没有规定发言的必须是最优秀的毕业生，”博伊尔解释道。
"But it happens that Yusef has a 4.0, and he's got a really interesting story to tell."
“只不过刚好，尤塞夫的绩点达到了4.0，而且他的故事也很值得分享。”
Pierce is in his early 30s and is a bit of a nerd and a class leader.
皮尔斯刚30岁，有点书呆子气质，也是一名班干部。
He also writes poetry and paints.
他也会写些诗歌，画点画。
"It is true that oppression often requires that individuals make themselves extraordinary in order to simply survive," reads his artist's statement in an online exhibit of his work.
“确实，压力往往要求人们为了生存而把自己变得非凡，”他的在线作品展览上的艺术家简介里这样说道。
"My paintings are entire conversations on canvas."
“我的画作就是在画布上进行的一种表达。”
Eventually, he says, he wants to be a college professor, working with formerly incarcerated students.
他说，他最后想成为一名大学教授，跟之前的学生们一起工作。
"So he wants my job," says Boyle, laughing, "and he'd be much better at it than I am."
“所以他想抢我饭碗，”博伊尔笑着说道，“他肯定会比我做得更好。”
Yusef finished high school, but in his early 20s he was arrested and convicted of armed robbery.
尤塞夫念完高中后，二十多岁时，因为持枪抢劫而被捕入狱。
Drochelle Pierce says she was beside herself when she learned his sentence would be nearly 20 years.
他的母亲卓歇尔·皮尔斯说当她得知儿子被判了20年的时候都气疯了。
"I tell you, honestly, I never envisioned that Yusef would ever go to prison. Never, never. Never."
“说实话，我真的从来没想过尤塞夫会进监狱。做梦都没想过。”
A few months into Yusef's prison sentence, she wrote him a letter.
尤塞夫入狱几个月后，她给他写了一封信。
"What's done is done," she wrote.
“大错已经铸成，”她写道。
"You, now more than ever, must diligently seek and obtain higher education."
“你如今应该拿出更大的劲头去读书，接受更高等的教育。”
It wasn't a new message.
这不是她第一次这样说了。
Education had always been at the center of her relationship with Yusef.
她在养育尤塞夫的整个过程中都在关注教育这个问题。
When he was young, he remembers riding in the car with his mom, a sociology textbook open on his lap.
还小的时候，他就记得跟妈妈一起坐车，腿上摊开一本社会学的教科书。
"She wouldn't let me turn on the radio," he says.
“她都不让我听收音机，”他说。
"She would make me read to her."
“而是会要求我念给她听。”
Today, the two talk on the phone nearly every day.
如今，母子俩几乎每天都会通电话。
After writing and rewriting a number of drafts, on May 15 Pierce delivered his final graduation speech to hundreds of Pitzer graduates and their family members and friends.
在反复写了很多遍稿子之后，五月十五日，皮尔斯最后在几百名皮策学院的同学和家长们面前发表了自己的毕业演讲。
The content he landed on?
他讲了什么内容呢？
That letter his mom sent him all those years ago.
就是母亲多年前给他写的信。
The final line of the poem:
里面有一首诗，最后一句是这样的：
It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.
无论道路多么崎岖/无论有多少惩罚/我才是命运的主人/我是我灵魂的主宰！
"I love that so much," she says.
“我太爱这句诗了，”她说道。
"I sent that to my son because I wanted him to think in terms of 'OK, here you are now. What happens to you from this point going forward, it really depends on you.' "
“我之所以给儿子写这首诗，是因为我希望他能这样想'反正已经走到这一步了，接下来怎么做，就看我自己了。’”
She is proud of her son and inspired by him too.
如今她为自己的儿子感到骄傲，而备受鼓舞。
"Look what he did. He turned a bad situation into something very, very positive. Here he is, graduating with his degree."
“看看他的成绩。他把逆境变成了顺境。如今顺利拿到学位毕业了！”
问题
文中提到尤塞夫是因为什么入狱？
留言回复正确答案，前五名朋友可以获得红包奖励哦，赶快来试试吧！
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