Aborigines
After four days on the Stewart Highway, a lonely, two-lane stretch of pavement from the south of Australia to the north, I was approaching the halfway point on my journey to the top of the country. As the van rolled towards Alice Springs, a tourist-centered outpost for Outback exploration where I would be staying for several days, I caught glimpses of manmade structures dotting the mind-numbing monotony of the empty desert landscape. I later discovered that these were the homes of Aboriginal people who lived in the area.
In Alice Springs and other towns in the area, Aborigines reside in glaring opposition to their white Australian neighbors, mostly passing their days sitting in small groups in the shade while intimidated tourists scurry by. Since most of the tourists come to this destination to witness “Authentic Australia” in the outback, their fear is ironic. And it is only the white locals who profit from the tourist industry by peddling Aboriginal cultural artifacts such as didgeridoos and boomerangs.
Before the Europeans took the Aborigines’ land and dispersed many of their tribes, these true Australian natives had a legacy many thousands of years old of defining themselves through their relationship to the land. They harnessed nature and thrived in one of the world’s harshest climates, which we visitors had immense difficulty tolerating without amenities like air conditioning. Through oral tradition alone, Aborigines preserved their culture, including one of the world’s most complex legal systems. The forced separation of tribes and families from each other as well as from their native homelands and lifestyles is gradually wearing away the cultural identity so crucial to a people’s survival.
Witnessing this disintegration of culture inspired me to grapple with the question of identity. I asked myself who I was without the factors I usually rely on for self-definition -- my home, family, and friends -- in a place where no one cared about my academic credentials and in an era when not everyone adores Americans. While traveling, I went without some of my accustomed affiliations or labels, forcing me to define myself by different terms. I enjoyed depending upon my internal compass, my common sense, and my personality to guide me through foreign places. However, my homeless situation was my choice, and it was temporary. For Aborigines, their forced detachment from their land and their distance from one another has changed the course of their civilization and perhaps set the pace for its demise.
These questions have already begun to influence my interest in law. Because I like to examine issues from all sides in order to try to reconcile opposing arguments to reach a middle ground, I have always known that I wanted to be a lawyer. My time in Alice Springs reminded me that the law can be a tool by which we preserve and protect identity. For instance, there are laws written by the U.S. Congress to protect U.S. citizens from socially destructive forces like discrimination and hate crimes, so that we can safely identify ourselves by our ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender or race. The law cannot dictate how people treat one another, but it can set parameters in order to help us peacefully coexist despite our differences. It also cannot reverse harmful events, or fully compensate for the loss of one’s cultural identity, but it can be a tool that we utilize to inject more justice into our futures by learning from past mistakes.
My travels and subsequent discoveries equip me for a richer and more conscious life as a lawyer and as a responsible citizen of the world. Since my time in Alice Springs, I approach conflicts and questions with a more open mind, and I try to understand situations by looking through the lens of others’ life experiences. The situation in Alice Springs was disturbing, but bearing witness to it has been a kind of blessing for me. I did not have to travel 12,000 miles to see examples of displacement and loss of identity; these situations have occurred -- and continue to occur -- in my own country for centuries. But by stepping out of my familiar comfort zone, I was able to see injustices more clearly and to appreciate the magnitude of humanity’s seemingly endless struggle for peaceful coexistence. I look forward to being an integral part of this struggle as a practitioner of the law.
点评：
1. 本文以旅游作为开头，营造一种轻松、愉快的气氛。
2. 通过旅行到澳大利亚的一个小镇来发现当地的文化来写文化对民族的重要性。可以看出作者有很强的观察能力和分析能力。
3. 作者通过文化，联系到了法律，并说明法律的重要性，从而点出想成为一名律师。
4. 本文结构清晰，逻辑性强，是一篇很好的短文。
译文：
澳大利亚的土著居民
斯图尔特高速公路是一个偏僻的、双车道的公路，是澳大利亚南部通向北部的高速公路。在这条公路上行使了四天以后，我马上就要完成了在这个国家一半的旅程。当车行使到爱丽丝斯普克林的时候，我会在澳大利亚内地边区的旅游中心停留几日，我发现在空旷的沙漠里人工的建筑看上去就是千篇一律的点。我后来才发现这写是当地的土著居民的房子。
在当地的爱丽丝斯普克林和其他城镇，土著居民对他们的白澳大利亚邻居非常的敌对，白天，他们在阴暗的地方聚集在一起以此来吓跑游客。大多数的游客来到内地主要是为了观赏“Authentic Australia”，而他们的害怕是非常可笑的。白当地居民从土著的文化产物的旅游工业来获取利益，比如迪吉里杜管和回飞棒。
在欧洲人占领土著居民的土地和趋散他们的部落以前，这些真正的澳大利亚人通过他们息息相关的土地而获得了数千年的遗产。他们在世界上最糟糕的环境之一里生存并发展壮大，那里的气候，我们这些旅游者是很难适应的。经过口头的传统惯例，澳大利亚的土著居民保护他们的文化，包括世界上最复杂的法律系统。被迫分离的部落和家庭以及他们与生俱来的国家和生活方式正逐渐的消磨了文化的特征，文化特征对一个民族的生存是很至关重要的。
目睹了这次文化的瓦解，激励我去探究特性的问题。我问我自己如果我没有了我所依赖的个人因素-我的家乡，家庭，和朋友-在一个没有人关心我的学业和一个没有人崇拜美国的时代。 当我抛掉我以前的所有联系去旅游的时候，各种不同的条件迫使我从新定义我自己。我喜欢根据我内心的罗盘、我的常识和我的个性去指导我旅游。然而我选择了无家可归，这只是暂时的。对于澳大利亚的土著居民，他们被迫家破人亡已经改变了他们的文化，或许已经开始慢慢灭亡。
这些问题已经开始影响了我对法律的兴趣。我喜欢去调查问题的全面性来试图调节正反双方去达成一致，我一直都希望我可以成为一名律师。我在爱丽丝斯普克林度过的时间让我了解到法律是保护和保障身份的一种工具。举例来说，有美国国会制定的保护美国公民免受社会暴力，像歧视和仇杀，所以我们可以在种族划分，宗教信仰，性倾向和性别上可以保护自己的安全。法律不能命令人们如何对待彼此，虽然我们有分歧，却可以设定一个参数来帮助我们和平共处。它也不能扭转不利的事件,或完全弥补一个人的文化特征的损失, 但它可以是一种通过学习过去的错误，来为未来注入更多争议的工具。
我的旅行和后来发现我作为一名律师和这个世界上有责任感的公民所具有的丰富的、有觉悟的人生。我在爱丽丝斯普克林度过的时间，使我可以用更宽广的观点去处理矛盾和问题，我通过观察别人的生活经历去试图理解形式。爱丽丝斯普克林的情形是糟糕的，但对于目睹它的我来说，是一种祝福。我没有去旅行12000公里去看流离失所的例子，这些情况正在发生-也一直在发生-在我自己的国家发生了几百年。我走出我所熟悉的区域，我能够清晰的看到不公平的现象和表面上为了和平共处而发生的大量的、无休止的战争。我期盼我作为一名法律职业者成为这场战争的一分子。
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