NEW YORK — The archivist stumbled across the file in a stack of boxes on the second floor of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. The yellowing letters inside dated back more than half a century, chronicling the dreams and struggles of a young man in Kenya.
纽约――哈莱姆区朔姆伯格黑人文化研究中心(Courtesy of Luo Siling)的二层，档案管理员在一摞盒子里偶然发现了这份文档。文档里面，那些泛黄的信件来自半个多世纪以前，记载了肯尼亚一个年轻人的梦想与奋斗。
He was ambitious and impetuous, a 22-year-old clerk who could type 75 words a minute and translate English into Swahili. But he had no money for college. So he pounded away on a typewriter in Nairobi, pleading for financial aid from universities and foundations across the Atlantic.
这个22岁的职员充满雄心和冲劲，他一分钟可以打75个单词，会把英语翻译为斯瓦西里语。但他没钱上大学，所以只好在内罗毕奋力敲着打字机，向大西洋对岸的大学与基金会申请资助。
His letters would help change the course of American history.
这些信将帮助改变美国历史的进程。
“It has been my long cherished ambition to further my studies in America,” he wrote in 1958.
“赴美深造是我长久以来一直珍视的理想，”他在1958年写道。
His name was Barack Hussein Obama, and his dispatches helped unleash a stream of scholarship money that carried him from Kenya to the United States. There, he fathered the child who would become the nation’s first black president, only to vanish from his son’s life a few years after his birth.
他的名字是贝拉克·侯赛因·奥巴马(Barack Hussein Obama)。这些信件帮他获取了一系列奖学金，令他可以离开肯尼亚，来到美国。在这里，他生下了一个儿子，后来这个孩子成了这个国家的第一位黑人总统，但他本人在儿子出生后几年，就从他的生活中消失了。
In 2013, the Schomburg Center invited President Barack Obama to see the newly discovered documents, which included nearly two dozen of his father’s letters, his transcripts from the University of Hawaii and Harvard University, and references from professors, advisers and supporters. Nearly three years later, as Obama celebrates his last Father’s Day in the White House, the center is still waiting for a response.
2013年，朔姆伯格中心邀请贝拉克·奥巴马总统观看这批新发现的文件，其中包括20多封他父亲的信件，他在夏威夷大学与哈佛大学的成绩单，以及教授、导师与支持者们为他写的推荐信。将近三年后，奥巴马最后一次在白宫过父亲节，这个中心仍在等待他的回复。
The trove of documents, described publicly here for the first time, renders a portrait of Barack Obama Sr. in his own words, sometimes in his own handwriting, as he describes his studies in the United States. But it also lays bare the beginnings of the fractured relationship between father and son.
本文是对这批文件的第一次公开描述，在这些文件之中，老贝拉克·奥巴马描述了自己在美国的学习生涯，用他自己的语言——有时还是他本人亲笔——为人们勾勒了一幅他的肖像。但是这些文字也直白呈现了一段父子关系破裂的开端。
A senior White House official said Obama would be interested in seeing the documents after he leaves office next year but declined to comment on why administration officials had not responded to the letter or to follow-up correspondence.
一位白宫高级官员说，奥巴马明年离任后会有兴趣去看那些文件，但此人拒绝评论白宫官员为何没有对信件及后续通信做出回应。
“The papers are rich; they tell a fascinating, traditional, self-made man’s story,” said Khalil Gibran Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center, who said he hoped Obama would read them someday. “There’s a reason to bear witness to the personal legacy that is here.”
“这些文件非常丰富；它们讲述了一个引人入胜的、传统的、白手起家的男人的故事，”朔姆伯格中心主任哈利勒·吉卜兰·穆罕默德(Khalil Gibran Muhammad)说。他说，他希望奥巴马今后能够看到它们。“这份个人遗产理应获得见证。”
As president, Obama has spoken openly and repeatedly about the void his father left in his life. Barack Obama Sr. went home to Kenya in 1964, when Obama was 3 years old, and returned to visit his son only once, for a month, when Obama was 10. In an interview with The New York Times last month, the president said his father’s absence had left him struggling as a teenager to figure out “what it meant to be a man.”
奥巴马当上总统后曾多次公开谈起父亲在自己生活中的缺位。1964年，奥巴马3岁的时候，老贝拉克·奥巴马返回肯尼亚，只在奥巴马10岁的时候来看望过儿子一次，停留了一个月。上月接受《纽约时报》采访时，总统说起自己十几岁的时候，父亲的缺席令他必须努力弄清“身为男人究竟意味着什么”。
Barack Obama’s Sr.'s letters, which span the period from 1958 to 1964, offer new insights, particularly about his years in the United States. But the records, which were preserved among the papers of a foundation that provided scholarships to African students at the time, may also resurrect old pain.
老贝拉克·奥巴马的信件年代跨越1958年到1964年，为人们了解他提供了新的资料，特别是关于他在美国的那段岁月。这些资料一度被保存在当时一个向非洲学生提供奖学金的基金会，如今，它们也可能会唤起旧日的痛楚。
It was while pursuing his undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii in 1960 that Barack Obama Sr. met Ann Dunham, a classmate. Although he already had a wife and two children in Kenya, he married her the following year, after she became pregnant. Their son was born on Aug. 4, 1961. But Barack Obama Sr. never mentioned his new wife and son, not even in his scholarship applications.
1960年，老贝拉克·奥巴马在夏威夷大学攻读本科学位期间，认识了同学安·邓纳姆(Ann Dunham)。他在肯尼亚已经有了妻子和两个孩子，但在邓纳姆怀孕后，两人还是于次年结了婚。他们的儿子于1961年8月4日出生。但是老贝拉克·奥巴马从没在信件中提起自己的新妻子和儿子，甚至在奖学金申请信里也没写。
Relatives have described Barack Obama Sr. as a complicated man, brilliant and imperious, charming and brash, who began to drink heavily as his dreams of becoming one of Kenya’s leading government economists foundered. He died in a car crash at age 46 without ever fulfilling his early promise.
亲戚们形容老贝拉克·奥巴马是个性格复杂的人，才华横溢而又傲慢自大，富于魅力而又无礼放肆，他曾经梦想成为肯尼亚政府首席经济学家中的一员，梦想破灭后就开始酗酒。46岁那年，他在车祸中逝世，早年的抱负从来未能实现。
The elder Obama’s youngest brother, Said Obama, noted in a telephone interview from Kenya this month that he hoped the records would help the family understand his sibling more fully. He said Barack Obama Sr. had never stopped caring about the son he left behind, recalling how he proudly showed off the photograph and school progress reports of the young man who would become president.
老奥巴马最小的弟弟赛义德·奥巴马(Said Obama)本月在肯尼亚接受电话采访时说，他希望这些文件可以帮助家族更充分地了解自己的兄长。他说，老贝拉克·奥巴马从未停止过关心自己在美国的儿子。他回忆，兄长曾经自豪地展示这位后来成为总统的年轻人的照片和学校成绩报告。
“He loved his son,” Said Obama recalled. “I don’t think you do such things if you don’t love your son.”
“他爱自己的儿子，”赛义德·奥巴马回忆。“我觉得一个人如果不爱自己的儿子，是不会这样做的。”
President Obama often describes his life as an only-in-America saga, the improbable rise of the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya to the American presidency. But his father’s ascent was astounding, too, as he journeyed from the dusty roads of his rural village to the halls of Harvard.
奥巴马总统经常把自己的生活描述为一段只能在美国发生的传奇，一个堪萨斯州的白人女子与一个肯尼亚的黑人男子生下的儿子，最后不可思议地当上了美国总统。但是他的父亲从尘土飞扬的乡村小路出发，一直走进哈佛大学的殿堂，这段上进之路同样震撼人心。
He was determined to join the wave of young Kenyans seeking higher education overseas as calls for independence swept the African continent. His letters helped him gain admission to the University of Hawaii and to come up with the money he needed to cover his costs. (An unexpected personal connection helped, too. It turned out that an official of a U.S. foundation had employed his father as a cook.)
当独立运动席卷非洲大陆之际，年轻的肯尼亚人都在谋求到海外接受高等教育，老贝拉克·奥巴马也决心加入这股浪潮。他的信件帮助他赢得了夏威夷大学的入学资格，也得到了足以支付他开销的钱。（一个意外的人际关系也帮上了忙，美国某基金会的一位官员曾雇他父亲当过厨师。）
On Aug. 4, 1959, he boarded Flight 162 of British Overseas Airways Corp. and flew from Nairobi to Rome, records show. From there, he flew to Paris and then on to New York. A bus carried him to Los Angeles, where he caught a plane to Hawaii. A year later, he would meet Dunham, President Obama’s mother.
记录表明，1959年8月4日，他登上英国海外航空公司的162号航班，从内罗毕飞往罗马。他从罗马飞往巴黎，之后又飞到纽约。一辆巴士载着他来到洛杉矶，之后他又搭乘飞机来到夏威夷。一年后，他在那里遇到了奥巴马总统的母亲邓纳姆。
Most people on campus had no idea that the star student had married a second wife during his sophomore year or that he was the father of a baby boy. By 1962, when he headed to Harvard to pursue a graduate degree, his American family had already fallen apart.
学校里的大多数人都不知道，这位优秀学生在大二期间娶了自己的第二个妻子，成了一个小男孩的爸爸。到1962年，他来到哈佛攻读研究生学位时，他的美国家庭已经解体了。
He ended up with a master’s degree in economics from Harvard — not the doctorate he had hoped for — and headed home to Kenya without his little boy. Christine McKay, the archivist who discovered the letters, said she could not help but think about that son as she pored over the pages.
最后，他在哈佛获得了经济学硕士学位，而不是他希望中的博士学位。他回到了肯尼亚，没有带上年幼的儿子。发现这些信件的档案管理员克里斯蒂娜·麦凯(Christine McKay)说，浏览这些文件的时候，她不由得想到那个儿子。
“I thought it would be great if the president could see his father’s words,” she said.
“我觉得如果总统能看看自己父亲亲笔写的东西就太好了，”她说。
So for now, the records reside in Box 214 of the Phelps Stokes Fund collection in the Schomburg’s temperature-controlled, off-site storage facility. Whenever Obama is ready, the center’s director said, his father’s file will be waiting.
如今，这些文件被放在保存菲尔普斯·斯托克斯基金会(Phelps Stokes Fund)藏品的214号箱中，储存在朔姆伯格中心外面的一个恒温库房里。中心主任说，只要奥巴马做好了准备，这些文件随时静候。