Good morning President Taylor, Board of Trustees, faculty, parents, family, friends, the community of Galesburg, the class of 1955 -- which I understand was out partying last night, and yet still showed up here on time -- and most of all, the Class of 2005. Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you -- thank you for the honor of allowing me to be a part of it. 早上好，泰勒校长、董事会成员、各位教师、家长、家人、朋友、盖尔斯堡社区的居民、1955届校友——听说你们昨晚出去聚会了，今天却仍然准时到场——最重要的是，2005届毕业生们。祝贺你们毕业，也谢谢你们让我有幸参与这一盛典。
Thank you also, Mr. President, for this honorary degree. It was only a couple of years ago that I stopped paying my student loans in law school. Had I known it was this easy, I would have ran [sic] for the United States Senate earlier. 校长先生，也感谢您授予我荣誉学位。就在几年前，我才还清法学院的学生贷款。要是早知道获得学位这么容易，我早就竞选美国参议员了。
You know, it has been about six months now since you sent me to Washington as your United States Senator. I recognize that not all of you voted for me, so for those of you muttering under your breath “I didn’t send you anywhere,” that's ok too. Maybe we’ll hold -- What do you call it? -- a little Pumphandle after the ceremony. Change your mind for the next time. 你们知道，距离你们把我送到华盛顿担任联邦参议员，大约已经六个月了。我明白，并非在座每个人都投票支持了我。所以，如果有人在小声嘀咕“我可没把你送到哪儿去”，那也没关系。也许典礼之后，我们可以举行一次——你们怎么称呼来着？——“握手会”，争取让你们下次改变主意。
It has been a fascinating journey thus far. Each time I walk onto the Senate floor, I'm reminded of the history, for good and for ill, that has been made there. But there have been a few surreal moments. 到目前为止，这是一段令人着迷的旅程。每次走进参议院议事厅，我都会想起那里创造过的历史，无论好坏。但其中也有一些恍如梦境的时刻。
For example, I remember the day before I was sworn in, myself and my staff, we decided to hold a press conference in our office. Now, keep in mind that I am ranked 99th in seniority. I was proud that I wasn’t ranked dead last until I found out that it’s just because Illinois is bigger than Colorado. 比如宣誓就职前一天，我和工作人员决定在办公室举行记者会。请记住，我的资历排名是第99位。我本来还庆幸自己没有垫底，后来才知道，那只因为伊利诺伊州比科罗拉多州大。
So I’m 99th in seniority, and all the reporters are crammed into the tiny transition office that I have, which is right next to the janitor’s closet in the basement of the Dirksen Office Building. It’s my first day in the building, I have not taken a single vote, I have not introduced one bill, had not even sat down in my desk, and this very earnest reporter raises his hand and says: 于是，身为资历第99位的参议员，我那间小小的过渡办公室里挤满了记者；办公室位于德克森办公楼地下室，就在清洁工储物间旁边。那是我进楼的第一天，我一票未投、一项法案未提，甚至还没在办公桌前坐下，一位极其认真的记者便举手问道：
“Senator Obama, what is your place in history?” “奥巴马参议员，您在历史上的位置是什么？”
I did what you just did, which is laugh out loud. I said, “place in history?” I thought he was kidding. At that point, I wasn’t even sure the other Senators would save a place for me at the cool kids’ table. 我的反应和你们刚才一样，放声大笑。我说：“历史上的位置？”我以为他在开玩笑。那时，我甚至不确定其他参议员会不会在“风云人物”的桌边给我留个座位。
But as I was thinking about the words to share with this class, about what’s next, about what’s possible, and what opportunities lay ahead, I actually think it’s not a bad question for you, the class of 2005, to ask yourselves: What will be your place in history? 然而，当我思考今天该对各位说些什么，思考下一步、未来的可能以及前方的机遇时，我发现这其实是一个值得2005届毕业生自问的问题：你们将在历史上占据什么位置？
In other eras, across distant lands, this question could be answered with relative ease and certainty. As a servant in Rome, you knew you’d spend your life forced to build somebody else’s Empire. As a peasant in 11th Century China, you knew that no matter how hard you worked, the local warlord might come and take everything you had -- and you also knew that famine might come knocking at the door. As a subject of King George, you knew that your freedom of worship and your freedom to speak and to build your own life would be ultimately limited by the throne. 在其他时代、遥远的国度，这个问题往往可以相对轻易而确定地回答。身为古罗马的奴仆，你知道自己一生都会被迫为别人的帝国劳作；身为11世纪中国的农民，你知道无论多么辛勤，当地军阀都可能夺走你的一切，饥荒也可能随时登门；身为乔治国王的臣民，你知道信仰、言论以及开创自己生活的自由，最终都受王权限制。
And then America happened. 后来，美国出现了。
A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form “a more perfect union” on this new frontier. 在这里，命运不是一个既定终点，而是一段由人们共同经历、共同塑造并不断重建的旅程；这些人有胆量、有勇气相信，即使困难重重，他们仍能在这片新边疆上建立“一个更完善的联邦”。
And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an empire for the sake of an idea, they started to come. Across oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. 当世界各地的人们听说地位卑微的殖民者为一个理念推翻帝国的故事后，他们开始来到这里。他们跨越海洋与时代，定居在波士顿、查尔斯顿、芝加哥、圣路易斯、卡拉马祖和盖尔斯堡，努力构筑自己的美国梦。
This collective dream moved forward imperfectly -- it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It’s answered by us. 这个共同梦想并非完美地向前推进：对原住民的伤害给它留下伤痕，奴隶制度背叛了它，对女性的压迫遮蔽了它，战争与萧条动摇了它。然而，人们仍一砖一瓦、一轨一轨，用一双双长满老茧的手继续梦想、建设、劳作、游行，并向政府请愿，最终把美国建设成这样一个国家：我们在历史上的位置不是由别人替我们回答，而是由我们自己回答。
Have we failed at times? Absolutely. Will you occasionally fail when you embark on your own American journey? You surely will. But the test is not perfection. 我们是否曾经失败？当然。你们踏上自己的美国之旅后会不会偶尔失败？一定会。但检验标准并非完美。
The true test of the American ideal is whether we’re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life’s big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams. 美国理想真正的考验，是我们能否承认失败，然后共同奋起，应对时代的挑战；是任由事件和历史塑造我们，还是主动塑造它们；是由出身和境遇决定人生的大赢家与大输家，还是建设一个至少让每个人都有机会努力工作、不断进步并实现梦想的共同体。
We have faced this choice before. 我们以前也曾面临这样的选择。
At the end of the Civil War, when farmers and their families began moving into the cities to work in the big factories that were sprouting up all across America, we had to decide: Do we do nothing and allow captains of industry and robber barons to run roughshod over the economy and workers by competing to see who can pay the lowest wages at the worst working conditions? Or do we try to make the system work by setting up basic rules for the market, instituting the first public schools, busting up monopolies, letting workers organize into unions? 南北战争结束后，农民及其家人纷纷迁入城市，到遍布美国的新建大工厂工作。我们必须作出决定：是袖手旁观，任由工业巨头和强盗式资本家为压低工资、恶化劳动条件而竞争，肆意践踏经济和工人；还是努力让制度正常运转，为市场制定基本规则，创办公立学校，拆分垄断企业，并允许工人组织工会？
We chose to act, and we rose together. 我们选择了行动，也因此共同崛起。
When the irrational exuberance of the Roaring Twenties came crashing down with the stock market, we had to decide: do we follow the call of leaders who would do nothing, or the call of a leader who, perhaps because of his physical paralysis, refused to accept political paralysis? 当“咆哮的二十年代”的非理性繁荣随着股市一同崩溃时，我们必须决定：是听从那些主张无所作为的领导人，还是追随一位或许正因为身体瘫痪而拒绝接受政治瘫痪的领导人？
We chose to act -- regulating the market, putting people back to work, expanding bargaining rights to include health care and a secure retirement -- and together we rose. 我们选择了行动——监管市场、帮助人们重返工作岗位、扩大谈判权，使其涵盖医疗保障和安稳退休生活——于是我们共同崛起。
When World War II required the most massive home front mobilization in history and we needed every single American to lend a hand, we had to decide: Do we listen to skeptics who told us it wasn’t possible to produce that many tanks and planes? Or, did we build Roosevelt’s Arsenal for Democracy and grow our economy even further by providing our returning heroes with a chance to go to college and own their own home? 第二次世界大战要求进行历史上规模最大的本土动员，每一位美国人都必须伸出援手。我们需要决定：是听信怀疑者所谓无法生产如此多坦克和飞机的说法，还是建设罗斯福的“民主兵工厂”，并为归来的英雄提供上大学、拥有住房的机会，从而进一步发展经济？
Again, we chose to act, and again, we rose together. 我们再次选择行动，也再次共同崛起。
Today, at the beginning of this young century, we have to decide again. But this time, it is your turn to choose. 今天，在这个年轻世纪的开端，我们又一次必须作出决定。但这一次，轮到你们选择。
Here in Galesburg, you know what this new challenge is. You’ve seen it. All of you, your first year in college saw what happened at 9/11. It’s already been noted, the degree to which your lives will be intertwined with the war on terrorism that currently is taking place. 在盖尔斯堡，你们知道这项新挑战是什么，因为你们亲眼见过。你们上大学的第一年都见证了“九一一”事件。正如人们已经指出的那样，你们的人生将在很大程度上与正在进行的反恐战争交织在一起。
But what you’ve also seen, perhaps not as spectacularly, is the fact that when you drive by the old Maytag plant around lunchtime, no one walks out anymore. I saw it during the campaign when I met union guys who worked at the plant for 20, 30 years and now wonder what they’re gonna do at the age of 55 without a pension or health care; when I met the man who’s son needed a new liver but because he’d been laid off, didn’t know if he could afford to provide his child the care that he needed. 但你们还看到了一些也许不那么惊心动魄的变化：午餐时间驶过老旧的美泰克工厂，再也看不到工人从里面走出来。竞选期间，我遇到过在厂里工作二三十年的工会工人，他们到了55岁却失去养老金和医疗保障，不知道今后该怎么办；我还遇到过一位父亲，他的儿子需要换肝，但他因失业而不知道自己是否负担得起孩子所需的治疗。
It’s as if someone changed the rules in the middle of the game and no wonder -- no one bothered to tell these folks. And, in reality, the rules have changed. 这就像有人在比赛进行到一半时改了规则，却没人费心通知这些人，他们感到困惑也就不足为奇。事实上，规则确实已经改变。
It started with technology and automation that rendered entire occupations obsolete. When was the last time anybody here stood in line for the bank teller instead of going to the ATM, or talked to a switchboard operator? Then it continued when companies like Maytag were able to pick up and move their factories to some under developed country where workers were a lot cheaper than they are in the United States. 变化始于技术和自动化，它们使整个职业类别变得过时。上一次有人不去自动取款机，而是排队等待银行柜员服务，或者与电话总机接线员通话，是什么时候？随后，美泰克这样的公司能够把工厂整体搬到欠发达国家，因为那里的工人工资远低于美国。
As Tom Friedman points out in his new book, The World Is Flat, over the last decade or so, these forces -- technology and globalization -- have combined like never before. 正如托马斯·弗里德曼在新书《世界是平的》中指出的，在过去十年左右，技术与全球化以前所未有的方式结合起来。
So that while most of us have been paying attention to how much easier technology has made our own lives -- sending e-mails back and forth on our blackberries, surfing the Web on our cell phones, instant messaging with friends across the world -- a quiet revolution has been breaking down barriers and connecting the world’s economies. Now business not only has the ability to move jobs wherever there’s a factory, but wherever there’s an internet connection. 当我们大多数人只关注技术如何让生活变得更方便——用黑莓手机收发电子邮件、用手机浏览网页、与世界各地的朋友即时通信——一场悄然发生的革命正在打破壁垒，连接全球经济。如今，企业不仅能把工作转移到任何有工厂的地方，也能转移到任何有互联网连接的地方。
Countries like India and China realized this. They understand that they no longer need to be just a source of cheap labor or cheap exports. They can compete with us on a global scale. The one resource they needed were skilled, educated workers. So they started schooling their kids earlier, longer, with a greater emphasis on math and science and technology, until their most talented students realized they don’t have to come to America to have a decent life -- they can stay right where they are. 印度和中国等国家认识到了这一点。他们明白，自己不再只能提供廉价劳动力或廉价出口商品，而是能够在全球范围与我们竞争。他们所需要的资源，是掌握技能、接受过教育的劳动者。因此，他们让孩子更早入学、学习更久，并更加重视数学、科学和技术，直到最优秀的学生意识到，要过上体面的生活，他们不必来到美国，留在自己的国家也能做到。
The result? China is graduating four times the number of engineers that the United States is graduating. Not only are those Maytag employees competing with Chinese and Indian and Indonesian and Mexican workers, you are too. Today, accounting firms are e-mailing your tax returns to workers in India who will figure them out and send them back to you as fast as any worker in Illinois or Indiana could. 结果如何？中国每年毕业的工程师人数是美国的四倍。与中国、印度、印度尼西亚和墨西哥工人竞争的不仅是美泰克员工，也包括你们。如今，会计师事务所把客户的纳税申报材料通过电子邮件发给印度员工处理，对方完成后传回来的速度，与伊利诺伊州或印第安纳州的员工一样快。
When you lose your luggage in Boston at an airport, tracking it down may involve a call to an agent in Bangalore, who will find it by making a phone call to Baltimore. Even the Associated Press has outsourced some of their jobs to writers all over the world who can send in a story at a click of a mouse. 如果你在波士顿机场丢了行李，追查行李可能需要打电话给班加罗尔的客服人员，再由他致电巴尔的摩寻找。就连美联社也把一部分工作外包给世界各地的撰稿人，他们只需点击鼠标便能发回报道。
As Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, in this new economy, “Talent is the 21st century wealth.” If you've got the skills, you've got the education, and you have the opportunity to upgrade and improve both, you’ll be able to compete and win anywhere. If not, the fall will be further and harder than it ever was before. 正如托尼·布莱尔首相所说，在这种新经济中，“人才是21世纪的财富”。如果你拥有技能、接受过教育，并有机会不断提升二者，就能在任何地方参与竞争并取得成功。否则，跌落的距离会比以往更远，受到的冲击也会更重。
So what do we do about this? How does America find its way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be? 那么，我们该怎么办？美国如何在新的全球经济中找到前进道路？我们将在历史上占据什么位置？
Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn’t much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government -- divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on. 如同美国故事中的许多篇章一样，我们再次面临选择。仍有人认为，作为一个国家，我们对此无能为力；最好的办法，是让每个人从政府那里得到一大笔“退款”，以减税形式按个人份额分发，再鼓励大家拿自己的那份钱购买医疗服务、退休计划、儿童照护和教育等。
In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it -- Social Darwinism -- every man or woman for him or herself. 在华盛顿，人们把这种主张称为“所有权社会”。但在我们的历史上，它还有另一个名称——社会达尔文主义，也就是人人只顾自己。
It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford -- tough luck. 这个想法很有诱惑力，因为它无需多少思考或创造力。它让我们可以对那些医疗费或学费上涨得超出承受能力的人说：“运气不好。”
It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job -- life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty -- pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!” 它让我们可以对失去工作的美泰克工人说：“生活本来就不公平。”可以对生于贫困的孩子说：“靠自己白手起家吧。”它尤其诱人，是因为每个人都以为自己永远会是人生彩票的赢家，会成为下一个唐纳德·特朗普，至少不会成为被唐纳德·特朗普说“你被解雇了”的那个倒霉蛋。
But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it’s been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It’s been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. 但问题在于，这行不通，也无视了我们的历史。正是政府的研究和投资使铁路与互联网成为可能；正是靠体面的工资、福利和公立学校建立起来的庞大中产阶级，让所有人都得以繁荣。
Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability. 我们的经济实力依靠个人进取精神，也依靠对自由市场的信念；但它同样依靠我们彼此关照的意识，依靠每个人都与国家利益相关、大家同舟共济并且人人都有机会的理念。正是这些造就了我们无与伦比的政治稳定。
And so if we do nothing in the face of globalization, more people will continue to lose their health care. Fewer kids will be able to afford the diploma you’re about to receive. 因此，如果我们面对全球化无所作为，越来越多的人将失去医疗保障，越来越少的孩子能够负担得起你们即将获得的这张文凭。
More companies like United Airlines won’t be able to provide pensions for their employees. And those Maytag workers will be joined in the unemployment line by any worker whose skills can be bought and sold on the global market. 会有更多像联合航空这样的公司无法为员工提供养老金；而凡是技能可以在全球市场上买卖的劳动者，都可能加入美泰克工人的失业队伍。
So today I’m here to tell you what most of you already know. This is not us -- the option that I just mentioned. Doing nothing. It’s not how our story ends -- not in this country. America is a land of big dreamers and big hopes. 所以，今天我要告诉你们一件大多数人早已明白的事：我刚才所说的那种选择——无所作为——不是我们的道路。我们的故事不会这样结束，在这个国家尤其不会。美国是一个怀有伟大梦想和远大希望的国度。
It is this hope that has sustained us through revolution and civil war, depression and world war, a struggle for civil and social rights and the brink of nuclear crisis. And it is because our dreamers dreamed that we have emerged from each challenge more united, more prosperous, and more admired than before. 正是这种希望支撑我们走过革命与内战、经济萧条与世界大战、争取公民权利和社会权利的斗争，以及核危机的边缘。也正因为梦想家敢于梦想，我们每次走出挑战时，都比从前更加团结、更加繁荣，也更加受到敬重。
So let’s dream. Instead of doing nothing or simply defending 20th century solutions, let’s imagine together what we could do to give every American a fighting chance in the 21st century. 那么，让我们梦想吧。不要无所作为，也不要只是守护20世纪的解决方案；让我们共同设想，怎样才能让每一个美国人在21世纪都拥有奋力一搏的机会。
What if we prepared every child in America with the education and skills they need to compete in the new economy? If we made sure that college was affordable for everyone who wanted to go? If we walked up to those Maytag workers and we said “Your old job is not coming back, but a new job will be there because we’re going to seriously retrain you and there’s life-long education that’s waiting for you -- the sorts of opportunities that Knox has created with the Strong Futures scholarship program. 假如我们让美国每一个孩子都获得在新经济中竞争所需的教育和技能呢？假如我们确保每个想上大学的人都负担得起学费呢？假如我们走到那些美泰克工人面前，对他们说：“你们过去的工作不会回来，但新的工作会出现，因为我们将认真帮助你们重新培训，还有终身教育在等待你们——就像诺克斯学院通过‘强健未来’奖学金项目所创造的机会那样。”
What if no matter where you worked or how many times you switched jobs, you had health care and a pension that stayed with you always, so you all had the flexibility to move to a better job or start a new business? What if instead of cutting budgets for research and development and science, we fueled the genius and the innovation that will lead to the new jobs and new industries of the future? 假如无论你在哪里工作、换过多少次工作，医疗保障和养老金都始终跟随你，让每个人都能灵活地转向更好的工作或创办新企业呢？假如我们不削减研发和科学预算，而是激发才智与创新，以此创造未来的新工作和新产业呢？
Right now, all across America, there are amazing discoveries being made. If we supported these discoveries on a national level, if we committed ourselves to investing in these possibilities, just imagine what it could do for a town like Galesburg. 此刻，美国各地正在涌现令人惊叹的发现。如果我们在国家层面支持这些发现，决心投资这些可能性，想一想这能给盖尔斯堡这样的城镇带来什么。
Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery that turned corn into fuel. Down the street, a biotechnology research lab could open up on the cusp of discovering a cure for cancer. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out electric cars. The new jobs created would be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education. 十年或二十年后，那座老美泰克工厂或许会重新开门，变成一座把玉米转化为燃料的乙醇精炼厂；街道另一头或许会出现一家生物技术实验室，即将找到治愈癌症的方法；不远处，一家新汽车公司也许正忙着生产电动汽车。这些新工作将由接受过新技能培训、拥有世界一流教育的美国工人承担。
All of that is possible but none of it will come easy. Every one of us is going to have to work more, read more, train more, think more. 这一切都有可能，但绝不会轻易实现。我们每个人都必须更加努力地工作、阅读、学习和思考。
We will have to slough off some bad habits -- like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our economy and feed our enemies abroad. Our children will have to turn off the TV set once in a while and put away the video games and start hitting the books. We’ll have to reform institutions, like our public schools, that were designed for an earlier time. Republicans will have to recognize our collective responsibilities, even as Democrats recognize that we have to do more than just defend old programs. 我们必须改掉一些坏习惯，比如驾驶耗油量巨大的汽车，因为这会削弱经济并资助海外敌人。孩子们得偶尔关掉电视，收起电子游戏，开始认真读书。我们必须改革公立学校等为过去时代设计的机构。共和党人必须承认我们的集体责任，民主党人也必须认识到，不能只是维护旧有项目。
It won’t be easy, but it can be done. It can be our future. We have the talent and the resources and brainpower. But now we need the political will. We need a national commitment. 这并不容易，但可以做到，也可以成为我们的未来。我们拥有人才、资源和智慧，现在所需要的是政治意愿，是全国共同作出的承诺。
And we need each of you. 我们还需要你们每一个人。
Now, no one can force you to meet these challenges. If you want, it will be pretty easy for you to leave here today and not give another thought to towns like Galesburg and the challenges they face. There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one is forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits, and all the other things that our money culture says that you should want, that you should aspire to, that you can buy. 没有人能强迫你们迎接这些挑战。只要愿意，你们今天离开这里后，可以轻易地不再想起盖尔斯堡这样的城镇及其面临的困难。现实世界没有社区服务的强制要求，也没人逼迫你们关心。你们可以拿着文凭走下舞台，转身追逐大房子、漂亮西装，以及金钱文化所宣扬的那些你们应该渴望、应该追求、也可以买到的东西。
But I hope you don’t walk away from the challenge. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. 但我希望你们不要逃避挑战。只把人生目标放在赚钱上，体现的是一种志向的贫乏，也是对自己要求太低。你们需要承担国家面临的挑战，把它们变成自己的挑战。
Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It’s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. 这并非因为你们欠帮助自己走到今天的人一笔债，尽管这笔债确实存在；也并非因为你们对不如自己幸运的人负有义务，尽管我确实认为你们负有这种义务。最根本的原因，是你们对自己负有责任。因为个人的救赎始终有赖于集体的救赎；只有把自己的命运与一项超越自身的事业连接起来，你们才能认识到真正的潜能。
And I know that all of you are wondering how you’ll do this, the challenges seem so big. They seem so difficult for one person to make a difference. 我知道，你们都在思考该如何做到这一点。挑战看起来如此巨大，仿佛一个人很难带来任何改变。
But we know it can be done. Because where you’re sitting, in this very place, in this town, it’s happened before. 但我们知道，这可以做到。因为就在你们此刻坐着的这个地方，就在这座城镇，过去曾经有人做到了。
Nearly two centuries ago, before civil rights, before voting rights, before Abraham Lincoln, before the Civil War, before all of that, America was stained by the sin of slavery. In the sweltering heat of southern plantations, men and women who looked like me could not escape the life of pain and servitude in which they were sold. And yet, year after year, as this moral cancer ate away at the American ideals of liberty and equality, the nation was silent. 近两个世纪前，在公民权利、选举权、亚伯拉罕·林肯和南北战争出现之前，美国还沾染着奴隶制度的罪恶。在南方种植园酷热难耐的环境中，与我肤色相同的男女被当作商品出售，无法逃离痛苦与奴役的生活。年复一年，这种道德上的癌症侵蚀着美国关于自由和平等的理想，而整个国家保持沉默。
But its people didn’t stay silent for long. 但人民没有沉默太久。
One by one, abolitionists emerged to tell their fellow Americans that this would not be our place in history -- that this was not the America that had captured the imagination of the world. 废奴主义者一个接一个地站出来，告诉美国同胞：这不应当成为我们在历史上的位置，这也不是那个曾激发全世界想象力的美国。
This resistance that they met was fierce, and some paid with their lives. But they would not be deterred, and they soon spread out across the country to fight for their cause. One man from New York went west, all the way to the prairies of Illinois to start a colony. 他们遭遇了激烈抵抗，有些人甚至付出了生命。但他们没有退缩，很快走遍全国，为自己的事业而斗争。其中一名来自纽约的男子一路向西，来到伊利诺伊州的大草原，建立了一处聚居地。
And here in Galesburg, freedom found a home. 就在盖尔斯堡，自由找到了归宿。
Here in Galesburg, the main depot for the Underground Railroad in Illinois, escaped slaves could roam freely on the streets and take shelter in people’s homes. And when their masters or the police would come for them, the people of this town would help them escape north, some literally carrying them in their arms to freedom. 盖尔斯堡是伊利诺伊州“地下铁路”的主要枢纽。逃亡的奴隶可以自由走在街上，也能躲进居民家中。当奴隶主或警察前来追捕时，这座城镇的居民会帮助他们向北逃亡，有些人甚至真的把他们抱在怀里，送向自由。
Think about the risks that involved. If they were caught abetting a fugitive, you could’ve been jailed or lynched. It would have been simple for these townspeople to turn the other way; to go live their lives in a private peace. 想想这其中的风险。帮助逃亡者一旦被抓，可能遭到监禁，甚至私刑处死。对城镇居民来说，转过头去、只求自己平静生活，本来再容易不过。
And yet, they didn’t do that. Why? 然而，他们没有那样做。为什么？
Because they knew that we were all Americans; that we were all brothers and sisters; the same reason that a century later, young men and women your age would take Freedom Rides down south, to work for the Civil Rights movement. The same reason that black women would walk instead of ride a bus after a long day of doing somebody else’s laundry and cleaning somebody else’s kitchen. Because they were marching for freedom. 因为他们知道，我们都是美国人，都是兄弟姐妹。一个世纪后，与你们年龄相仿的年轻男女参加“自由乘车运动”、前往南方投身民权运动，也是出于同样的原因；黑人女性替别人洗了一整天衣服、打扫了一整天厨房后，宁愿步行也不乘坐公交车，同样是这个原因。因为他们都在为自由前进。
Today, on this day of possibility, we stand in the shadow of a lanky, raw-boned man with little formal education who once took the stage at Old Main and told the nation that if anyone did not believe the American principles of freedom and equality, that those principles were timeless and all-inclusive, they should go rip that page out of the Declaration of Independence. 今天，在这个充满可能的日子里，我们站在一位身材瘦长、骨骼嶙峋、几乎未受过正规教育之人的身影之下。他曾登上“老主楼”的讲台，告诉全国人民：如果有人不相信美国关于自由和平等的原则是永恒的、包容所有人的，那就应该把《独立宣言》中的那一页撕掉。
My hope for all of you is that as you leave here today, you decide to keep these principles alive in your own life and in the life of this country. You will be tested. You won’t always succeed. But know that you have it within your power to try. That generations who have come before you faced these same fears and uncertainties in their own time. And that through our collective labor, and through God’s providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other’s burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day. 我对你们所有人的希望是：今天离开这里时，你们决定让这些原则继续活在自己的人生中，也活在这个国家的生命中。你们将经受考验，也不会总是成功。但请知道，你们拥有尝试的力量。前几代人在自己的时代也曾面对同样的恐惧与不确定。依靠我们共同的劳动、上帝的眷顾，以及彼此分担重担的意愿，美国将在这段珍贵的旅程上继续前行，走向遥远的地平线和更加美好的明天。
Thank you so much class of 2005, and congratulations on your graduation. Thank you. 非常感谢2005届毕业生，并再次祝贺你们毕业。谢谢大家。