伊朗裔美国人使用科学技术展示成功故事
时间：2019-01-02 作者：英语课 分类：2017年VOA慢速英语(四)月
Pirooz Parvarandeh has been an executive 1 in the technology industry for many years. He is also an Iranian American. But Paravarandeh believes Iranian Americans are subject to many negative stereotypes 3.
A stereotype 2 is a widely held but often wrong or oversimplified idea about a group of people.
One reason is that even Iranian Americans themselves do not know about the many success stories of their group, he said.
So Parvarandeh helped set up what he calls the “Iranian Americans’ Contribution Project.” It collected 200,000 Iranian last names and 70,000 first names. It uses the internet to search jobs held by people with these Iranian names.
So far, the project has found more than 9,000 doctors and 3,000 dentists.
It also found that Iranian Americans have received at least 40,000 patents. Patents are given to people who invent new products or processes.
Parvarandeh hopes the information will cause people to reject negative images of Iranian Americans.
“What images come up with “Iranian?” A terrorist 4? A hostage-taker? Or a contributing member of society,” he asked during a recent talk at the University of California, Berkeley.
“If we don’t know the contributions of Iranian Americans, how can we expect the American public to know? If the public is not with us, why would policymakers want to stick up for us?”
About one million Iranians now live in the United States, mostly in California.
The Iranian Americans’ Contributions Project started last year. But it grew more interest this year after Iran was listed among countries included in the first and second travel bans called for by the Trump 5 administration. Both orders have been blocked temporarily by federal judges.
Parvarandeh hopes his new project will show Americans the many contributions being made by Iranian Americans.
Immigrant groups in America have long considered how best to both “assimilate,” or fit in,” and remain proud of their culture.
For Iranian Americans, this has been made more difficult by continuing tensions between the United States and Iran. Those tensions date back to the seizing and holding of 52 American hostages 6 at the U.S. embassy 7 in Tehran from November 1979 to January 1981.
The internet effort to identify important jobs done by Iranian Americans is not always successful. The second generation of Iranian Americans and people marrying non-Iranian Americans means more have taken on American sounding names.
But Parvarandeh hopes that Iranian Americans will reach out to his project. It uses both information collected on the internet, and interviews with Iranian Americans.
Abe Kasbo is founder 8 and chief executive officer of Verasoni Worldwide. It is a marketing 9 and public relations company with offices in New Jersey 10 and Texas. Kasbo decided 11 too many Americans do not know about the contributions of Arab Americans.
That led him to produce the 2016 film, “A Thousand and One Journeys.” It includes interviews with successful Arab Americans. He hopes the movie will show people the important contributions made by Arab-Americans.
Among those interviewed for the movie were former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, actor Jamie Farr, political activist 12 Ralph Nader and the late journalist, Helen Thomas.
Kasbo said people who watch the movie will learn about just some of the noteworthy contributions” by Arab Americans.
Words in This Story
negative - adj. thinking about the bad qualities of someone or something
contributing - adj. to help to cause something to happen
society - n. people living together in organized communities with shared laws, traditions, and values
interview - n. to ask someone questions
noteworthy - adj. significant or important
- A good executive usually gets on well with people.一个好的高级管理人员通常与人们相处得很好。
- He is a man of great executive ability.他是个具有极高管理能力的人。
- He's my stereotype of a schoolteacher.他是我心目中的典型教师。
- There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.人们对于成功商人一直都有一种固定印象。
- Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
- It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
- Without the gun,I'm a sitting duck for any terrorist.没有这支枪，我就成了恐怖分子下手的目标了。
- The district was put on red alert during a terrorist's bomb scare.这个地区在得到恐怖分子炸弹恐吓后作了应急准备。
- He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
- The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。
- The hostages were tied up and blindfolded. 人质被捆绑起来并蒙上了眼睛。
- Fear was the hostages' constant companion. 人质一直都感到恐惧不安。
- Large crowd demonstrated outside the British Embassy.很多群众在英国大使馆外面示威。
- He's a U.S. diplomat assigned to the embassy in London.他是美国驻伦敦大使馆的一名外交官。
- He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
- According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。
- They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
- He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。
- He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
- They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。
- This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
- There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。