能与2012年The Newsroom首集Will的speech “Why America is not the greatest country any more”媲美了，如果我有一个sharper mind。
Jay: I don’t understand what’s happening here. What country is this?
Tina: This is America.
Jay: This is not the America I know. When I came here with my family, we had nothing and we struggle. But we built a life here and we were welcome here. For years, my Dad kept this little picture of Ronald Regan above our kitchen table, with this quotes from him bout immigrants. “This families came here to work. They came to build. They brought with them courage, ambition, and the values of family.” That is the America I know. I am an immigrant. I am the child of immigrants. We were welcome here.
Tina: And today you probably wouldn’t be.
This is America. It expands and it contracts. Advances and recedes. Opens and closes. This is a country birthed in freedom and built on slavery. Separating families? They separated the black families in America for 250 years. What makes this feel so bad now is that we expect more. And that’s a good thing. This pain is progress.
But do not forget who we are and where we come from. I do not forget where I came from. I grew up in West Baltimore, around the corner from where Justice Marshall grew up. This Justice Marshall. He knew my father. He stood in my living room. The elementary school I went to, Mt. Royal, I went to because of him. I’m here, because of him. He was the grandson of a slave, and he changed American law. He changed the very idea of the Constitution! He made a document that considered him three-fifths of a man. A document of liberation.
This is the America I know. A beacon and a curse. Light and darkness. Hope and despair. This is America right now. But America never ends.
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1. Anna Deavere Smith的表演实在太漂亮，铿锵有力，抑扬顿挫。同片演员Ben Rappaport（饰演Seth）在推上说这段独白恰恰是Anna Deavere Smith被称为国宝的原因。
2. 最后一句：这是我认识的美国。是一座灯塔也是一个诅咒。是光明也是黑暗。是希望也是绝望。这是如今的美国，然而我们从不消亡。
3. 从黑人的角度解读如今这段混乱的、以驱逐移民甚至不惜拆散家庭为使命的社会历史不得不说没有讽刺意味，但是演员演出了因为懂得所以慈悲的大悲大爱之感——我夸张了，请见谅。
3. 改变了法律的Justice Marshall指的是用Brown v. Board of Education推翻美国隔离教育法案的那位法官，Thurgood Marshall。他在1991年逝世。
4. “五分之三个人”是美国奴隶制时代一个针对有效选举人数的一条协议法案。
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