我就觉得自己的父母是最好的（听读我父母是这一代人的典型）

我就觉得自己的父母是最好的（听读我父母是这一代人的典型）Although the Cold War was beginning with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe my parents and their generation felt secure and hopeful. American supremacy was the result not just of military might but of our values and of the abundant opportunities available to people like my parents who worked hard and took responsibility.我的故事始于第二次世界大战后。当时父亲和其他男人一样，为国效力后返乡担起养家糊口之责。婴儿潮随之出现，那是一个乐观主义的时代。美国将全世界从法西斯主义

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I wasn't born a first lady or a senator. I wasn't born a Democrat. I wasn't born a lawyer or an advocate for women's rights and human rights. I wasn't born a wife or mother. I was born an American in the middle of the twentieth century a fortunate time and place. I was free to make choices unavailable to past generations of women in my own country and inconceivable to many women in the world today. I came of age on the crest of tumultuous social change and took part in the political battles fought over the meaning of America and its role in the world.

我并非生来就是第一夫人或联邦参议员，并非生来就是民主党员、律师或妇女权利与人权的倡导者，也并非生来就是妻子或母亲。我有幸生在20世纪中叶的美国，拥有过去美国妇女无法享有的种种自由选择，即使在今天，世界上仍有许多妇女觉得自由选择超乎想像。我在社会激剧变革的浪尖上长大，并投身各种政治论争，探讨美国所代表的意义及它在世界上的角色。

My mother and my grandmothers could never have lived my life; my father and my grandfathers couldn't have imagined it. But they bestowed on me the promise of America which made my life and my choices possible.

母亲、奶奶、外婆跟我生活在截然不同的时代;父亲、爷爷、外公对于我的生活也无法想像。不过他们向我灌输美国式希望，这个希望造就了我的人生与选择。

My story began in the years following World War II when men like my father who had served their country returned home to settle down make a living and raise a family. It was the beginning of the Baby Boom an optimistic time. The United States had saved the world from fascism and now our nation was working to unite former adversaries in the aftermath of war reaching out to allies and to former enemies securing the peace and helping to rebuild a devastated Europe and Japan.

我的故事始于第二次世界大战后。当时父亲和其他男人一样，为国效力后返乡担起养家糊口之责。婴儿潮随之出现，那是一个乐观主义的时代。美国将全世界从法西斯主义中拯救出来，在战后又努力和以前的敌对国家修好，团结盟友与先前的敌人，致力于和平，协助受到战火摧残的欧洲与日本重建。

Although the Cold War was beginning with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe my parents and their generation felt secure and hopeful. American supremacy was the result not just of military might but of our values and of the abundant opportunities available to people like my parents who worked hard and took responsibility.

虽然美国和苏联、东欧展开冷战，不过我父母和他们那一代人不觉得有什么危险，依旧充满希望。美国的超强地位靠的不仅仅是武力，还有我们的价值观念和遍地的机会。只要努力工作并承担责任，像我父母一样的人谁都可以得到这些机会。

Middle-class America was flush with emerging prosperity and all that comes with it― new houses fine schools neighborhood parks and safe communities.

中产阶级的美国涌现出大量财富，随之而来的是新房子、好学校、街区公园和安全的社区。

Yet our nation also had unfinished business in the post-war era particularly regarding race. And it was the World War II generation and their children who woke up to the challenges of social injustice9 and inequality and to the ideal of America's promise to all of its citizens.

但是战后美国仍有未竟之业，尤其是种族问题。二战一代人及其子女们意识到了社会不公正与不平等的问题，也焕发出美国式希望应该延伸至它的每一位公民的理想。

My parents were typical of a generation who believed in the endless possibilities of America and whose values were rooted in the experience of living through the Great Depression. They believed in hard work not entitlement; self-reliance not self-indulgence.

我父母是这一代人的典型，他们相信美国的无穷可能性，他们的价值观念扎根于大萧条时期的生活经验。他们相信辛勤工作，不问回报;相信自力更生而非自我放纵。

That is the world and the family I was born into on October 26 1947. We were middle-class Midwestern and very much a product of our place and time. My mother Dorothy HowellRodham was a homemaker whose days revolved around me and my two younger brothers. My father Hugh E. Rodham owned a small business. The challenges of their lives made me appreciate the opportunities of my own life even more. I'm still amazed at how my mother emerged from her lonely early life as such an affectionate and levelheaded woman. She was born in Chicago in 1919. In 1927 my mother's young parents Edwin John Howell Jr and DellaMurray got a divorce. Della essentially11 had abandoned my mother when she was only three or four living her alone with meal tickets to use at a restaurant.

1947年10月26日，我来到了这样一个世界，这样一个家庭。我们家属中产阶级，和当时当地的其他家庭没什么两样。母亲全名多萝西·豪厄尔·罗德姆，一名家庭主妇，她的生活就是围绕着我、两个弟弟和父亲打转。父亲全名是休·E·罗德姆，经营小生意。他们遭遇的各种挑战让我倍加珍惜自己所拥有的机会。

I'm still amazed at how my mother emerged from her lonely early life as such an affectionate and levelheaded woman. She was born in Chicago in 1919. In 1927 my mother's young parents Edwin John Howell Jr and Della Murray got a divorce. Della essentially had abandoned my mother when she was only three or four living her alone for days with meal tickets to use at a restaurant.

母亲童年时孤单寂寞，但并未因此与人保持距离，反倒相当亲切又不失冷静，我至今还奇怪她是怎么做到的。她1919年生于芝加哥。1927年，年轻的外公埃德温·约翰·豪厄尔和外婆黛拉·默里离婚。母亲三四岁时，外婆黛拉就经常几天不见人影留下母亲一人，只留下餐厅餐劵。

Neither was willing to care for their children so they sent their daughters alone on a 3-day train trip from Chicago to Alhambra in California to live with their paternal grandparents.

两人都不愿抚养小孩，于是让女儿们自己搭三天的火车从芝加哥到阿尔汉布拉和祖父母同住。

My mother's grandfather Edwin Sr. a former British sailor left the girls to his wife Emma a severe woman who wore black Victorian dresses and resented and ignored my mother except when enforcing her rigid house rules.

母亲的爷爷老埃德温当过英国船员，把养育母亲的责任全交给妻子艾玛。艾玛很严厉，长年穿着黑色维多利亚式服装，对母亲不理不睬，充满怨气，惟有贯彻一丝不苟的家规时，才会正视母亲。

My mother found some relief from the oppressive conditions of Emma's house in the outdoors. She ran through the orange groves that stretched for miles in the San Gabriel Valley losing herself in the scent of fruit ripening in the sun. At night she would escaped into her books.

到了户外，摆脱艾玛家里令人窒息的气氛，母亲才感到一丝轻松。她徜徉在圣加布里埃尔山谷数英里长的橘子园里，陶醉于阳光下成熟的果实散发出的果香。夜里她就躲到书堆里。

She left home during her first year in the high school to work as a mother's helper caring for two young children in return for room board and three dollars a week. For the first time she lived in a household where the father and mother gave their children the love attention and guidance she had never received. My mother often told me that without that sojourn with a strong family she would not have known how to care for her own home and children.

高一时，她离开奶奶家，找了一份保姆的工作，帮忙照顾两个小孩，主人提供食宿，每周付给她三美元。但这是她生平第一次住在被爱包围的家庭里，看到父母如何关爱、教导孩子，这些都是她未曾享受过的。母亲常说，如果没有这一段插曲，她都不知道如何照顾自己的家庭与小孩。

When she graduated from high school my mother made plans to go to college in California. Buther mother Della contacted her—for the first time in ten years—and asked her to come live with her in Chicago. When my mother arrived in Chicago she found that Della wanted her only as a housekeeper. Once I asked my mother why she went back to Chicago she told me “I'd hoped so hard that my mother would love me that I had to take the chance and find out.”

中学毕业时，母亲打算在加州上大学，不过外婆黛拉主动和她联络——多年来头一遭——要母亲搬到芝加哥和她同住。母亲到了芝加哥才发现，黛拉要的不过是个管家。我曾问母亲为何回芝加哥。“我非常希望得到母爱，我得抓住机会去试试。”她说。

从美国第一夫人到参议院女强人，希拉里逐渐走上政治前台，以自己的名字而非克林顿夫人步入美国乃至国际名流。随着一本“完全写真”回忆录的问世，希拉里将可预见地再次成为焦点人物。而与以往不同，这一次她的身份是作家。