紐時賞析／加州小鎮淹大水 農人辛勤積攢一夕成空

In a California Town, Farmworkers Start From Scratch After Surprise Flood

加州小鎮淹大水 農人辛勤積攢一夕成空

Until the floodwaters came, until they rushed in and destroyed nearly everything, the little white house had been Cecilia Birrueta’s dream.

在洪水來臨、衝進屋內並幾乎摧毀一切以前，這棟小白房是西西莉亞．畢魯耶塔的夢想結晶。

She and her husband bought the two-bedroom fixer-upper 13 years ago, their reward for decades of working minimum-wage jobs, first cleaning houses in Los Angeles and now milking cows and harvesting pistachios in California’s Central Valley.

她與丈夫13年前買下這棟待翻新的兩房老屋，是兩人數十年來從事最低工資工作的回報，起初在洛杉磯當家務清潔人員，如今在加州中央谷地擔任牛奶工人和收割開心果。

The couple replaced the weathered wooden floors, installed a new stove and kitchen sink, and repainted the living room walls a warm burgundy. Here, they raised their three children, the oldest now at the University of California, Davis.

兩人把殘破的木地板換新、增添了新爐灶及廚房流理台，並將客廳牆面重新粉刷成溫暖的酒紅色。他們在這裡養育三個孩子，老大如今已是戴維斯加州大學學生。

Birrueta and her husband felt content. Until last month. Until the floodwaters came.

畢魯耶塔和丈夫感到很滿足。直到上月。直到洪水來臨。

A brutal set of atmospheric rivers in California unleashed a disaster in Planada, an agricultural community of 4,000 residents in the flatlands about an hour west of Yosemite National Park. During one storm in early January, a creek just outside of town busted through old farm levees and sent muddy water gushing into the streets.

一連串猛烈大氣河流肆虐加州，在普拉那達造成一場災難。這是一個4000人口的農業社區，位於優勝美地國家公園以西約一小時車程的平地上。一月稍早一場暴雨讓鎮外一條小溪暴漲，溪水衝潰老舊的農場堤防，泥流湧進街道。

For several days, the entire town looked like a lagoon. Weeks after record-breaking storms wreaked havoc across California and killed at least 21 people, some of the hardest-hit communities are still struggling to recover.

有好幾天，整個小鎮看起來就像一座潟湖。在破紀錄大雨肆虐整個加州導致至少21人喪生的數周後，一些受創最嚴重的社區仍在努力恢復。

The flood ruined the two cars owned by Birrueta and her family and destroyed most of their clothes. The walls with the burgundy paint that she had picked out had rotted through.

洪水毀了畢魯耶塔與家人的兩輛汽車，並破壞他們的大部分衣物。她挑選的酒紅色漆粉刷的牆面，也被洪水泡爛。

Birrueta, her husband and their 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter had to move into a camp that typically houses migrant farmworkers, who arrive each spring with few belongings and the hope of building a life like the Birruetas had. There, 41 families from Planada are staying in long beige cabins and relying on space heaters for warmth because the camps lack furnaces.

畢魯耶塔和她丈夫以及他們的14歲兒子與10歲女兒，不得不住進通常容納農場移工的營地，這些農工每年春天會來，帶著為數不多的行李，期待建立如畢魯耶塔曾經擁有的生活。在那裡，41個來自普拉那達的家庭住在淺褐色長型小棚屋裡，在沒有暖氣爐的營地倚賴移動式電暖器取暖。

“We came as immigrants, we started with nothing,” said Birrueta, 40, who was born in Mexico. “We bought a place of our own that we thought would be safe for our kids, and then we lost it. We lost everything.”

「我們以移民身分到來，白手起家」，出生於墨西哥、今年40歲的畢魯耶塔說，「我們買下一塊自己的地方，以為能讓孩子們安全，然後我們失去了它。我們失去了所有。」

The recent floods dealt a painful blow to a community in which more than one-third of households are impoverished. Roughly one-fourth of residents are estimated to be undocumented immigrants, making them ineligible for some forms of disaster relief.

最近的洪水對這個逾三分之一家庭為貧困戶的社區造成了慘痛打擊。根據估計，此地約四分之一居民為無證移民，讓他們無法領取某些形式的災害津貼。

文／Soumya Karlamangla、Viviana Hinojos　譯／陳曉慈