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华裔女孩面对噩运自强不息 被哈佛等名校录取（图） http://www.topchinesenews.com/vi ... 0&msg_id=109696 据美国侨报编译报道，《俄勒冈人》是美国俄勒冈州当地最权威并且拥有庞大读者群的媒体之一。近日，一名叫做史蒂夫.杜因(Steve Duin)的记者发表题为《克拉克马斯高中女生李丹(音译)可能教会波特兰市长萨姆.亚当斯的事》的报道。文章对当下波特兰市长无法兑现教育奖学金允诺的事件作出评论，而评论中引述出一名华人高中生李丹的例子，为读者揭开一个华人学生在美国自强不息、善良为人的奋斗故事。 像很多其他的艰辛的华人移民一样，李丹和她的母亲俞昭雁(音译)的故事充满戏剧性。在李丹8岁的时候，母亲因不堪忍受家暴与李丹的亲生父亲离婚。2007年，李丹的母亲和64岁的美国人史密斯(J.K Smith)通过网络和短暂接触后再婚，随后他们一起迁居到了俄勒冈州格兰茨帕斯(Grants Pass)。本以为母女二人的新生活可以就此开始，不用再相依为命，可惜好景不长，悲剧再次重演。史密斯与李丹母亲发生争执后不断恐吓母女俩，不久后史密斯因为威胁和家庭暴力被捕。李丹和母亲被安置到地方妇女危机救助中心，在换了7个妇女救助中心后，终于辗转到了克拉克马斯安定下来。李丹也开始自己两年的高中生活。 这样的经历并没有让李丹灰心丧气，她依旧积极向上顽强地生活着。她的老师们，救助中心的志愿者们和医院的护士们都对她赞赏有加。李丹说：“这些经历帮助我学习英语，我需要向前看，我现在可以自己找工作和房子，如果我还在继父的房子里住着，那我什么都不能做。我觉得自己已经非常幸运了，本来事情还有很多更加糟糕的结局。” 李丹在校期间成绩优异，她的SAT考试数学和化学部分都达到800分。即便生活拮据，母亲还在去年的一场严重车祸中丧失劳动能力，李丹依旧为中国地震和海地地震捐助。李丹除了日常学习还积极参加社区活动，到里德大学的旁听，还是当地非盈利组织的志愿者。 李丹和她的母亲 李丹的数学老师哈利(Harley Potampa)和史蒂夫表示：“她坚韧的性格让我惊异，她比我以前见过的任何人都坚强。看着她不断成长，她教会了我这个国家应该给予别人的机会。”李丹的生物老师福特(Ford Morishita)也说：“李丹让我希望自己成为更好的老师和更有责任心的人。” 在了解李丹的事情后，《俄勒冈人》网的记者史蒂夫还帮助李丹写了报读哈佛大学的推荐信。李丹最近已收到了包括麻省理工、哈佛、杜克等美国尖端学府在内的大学录取通知书。 附：Dear Harvard: This student will rock your world TO: William Fitzsimmons Dean of Admissions Harvard College 86 Brattle Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Dean Fitzsimmons: Among the thousands of applications that will arrive at Harvard before year's end, you will find one from Dan Li, a senior at Clackamas High School. Dan has the raw numbers you might expect from a student who aspires to attend the best colleges in the land: an 800 on her Math SAT and 800s on her SAT subject tests in Chemistry, Chinese and Math II. In a two-week span of her junior year at Clackamas, she took seven advanced-placement tests, scoring 5s in Chinese and Chemistry. In the calculus of your admissions' process, I know there is prestige in those numbers. There may be enough to guarantee her that celebrated free ride through Cambridge. But those are not the numbers that have shaped Dan's life. They are not the numbers that define her. And they are not among the reasons this young woman has changed the way so many in Oregon think about perseverance, opportunity and gratitude. By the time she was 15, Dan -- and her mother, Zhaoyan Yu -- had survived two troubling relationships. When Dan was a young girl in China, her father was an abusive alcoholic. "There were countless nights when after he got drunk, he would beat up my mother like crazy," Dan writes in a college essay. "I would kneel on the floor, beg him to stop, and pray some neighbors would hear the noise and knock on the door." Dan was eight when her mother finally secured a divorce. In 2007, Zhaoyan Yu married again, this time to J.K. Smith, 64, who courted her online and during trips to China. Dan and her mother came to Grants Pass that summer believing America to be "a land that is full of dreams and justice." They came to this country three summers ago. They've moved eight times since fleeing a bad marriage in southern Oregon. And through it all, Dan Li and her mother, Zhaoyan Yu, have never let go of one another. The romance lasted 40 days. When Yu and her daughter were not properly subservient to the man of the house, push came to shove. When Dan's mother responded by throwing a plastic water bottle at her husband, he called police, terrifying the women with the threat that they would be hauled off to jail. After listening to Smith describe all this, the police dispatcher asked him what his wife and stepdaughter were doing now. "They're hugging each other," he said. Some things never change. After Oregon State troopers arrived that August morning and sorted things out, Smith was arrested for menacing and domestic violence, and Dan and her mother were entrusted to the local Women's Crisis Support Team. Over the next several months, they lived in seven different women's shelters between Grant's Pass and St. Helens before Dan Li finally arrived in Clackamas. Somewhere along the line, Dean Fitzsimmons, you might have expected Dan to spiral off into despair or resentment. She did nothing of the kind. Dan was, instead, acutely aware of the small, unexpected bursts of kindness from teachers, shelter volunteers and hospital nurses. "This experience helped me learn English," Dan says. "I had to step up. Go out with my mother to find housing and a job. If I had stayed in my stepfather's house, I wouldn't have been able to do these things. "I consider myself really lucky. If this had happened in China, this would have ended badly." Harley Potampa, a retired math teacher and the Key Club advisor, first noticed Dan in December 2007. No matter how early he arrived at the high school, Dan was always working at one of the school computers or waiting in the rain for the custodians to unlock the doors. Potampa introduced himself. Over the next two years, he watched, with increasing awe, as Dan raised money for Mercy Corps to help earthquake victims in China and Haiti; single-handedly brought English language learners into the fabric of the Clackamas community; enrolled in college courses at Reed College; and volunteered at Kaiser Sunnyside. She showed up for Kaiser for the first time on the morning she turned 16. Her first birthday in the United States. The first morning she was eligible to volunteer. "I'm seen her develop into one of the two or three most inspirational high-school students I've ever met," Potampa says. "I'm amazed at her resilience. She's stronger than any human being I've ever met. Watching her take advantages of opportunities we take for granted, she's taught me a lot about what this country has to offer." Everyone echoes those sentiments, even as the tumult in this girl's life continues. A serious auto accident last February forced Zhaoyan Yu to quit her job as a nurse. Money is so tight that Dan lives with her mother in a low-income apartment off Southeast 82nd Drive in which the SAT study guides outweigh their furniture. And she lives without a quiver of self-pity or doubt. Lives with a blind eye to her problems and an open heart for yours. Lives only to respond to the kindness she has found in this angry, divided country of ours. "All I can say," notes Ford Morishita, who taught Dan Advanced Placement Biology, "is this student has inspired me to be a better teacher and human being." She wants to work for Mercy Corps. She wants to go to medical school. She wants to study Chinese medicine in Beijing and serve in the poorest village on the planet. But first, Dean Fitzsimmons, she would like to attend Harvard. She'll do fine if she never takes a run at orgo or the Yard. She's applying to a dozen other schools, including Stanford, Washington, Duke, UCLA and Cal Tech. But you have first shot. If you realize how fortunate you are, you better call and you best hurry. Dan Li is just getting started. And she is no longer waiting for that knock at the door. Sincerely,Steve Duin |
