你曾经给奥巴马写过信并且收到回信吗? [美国媒体]

你曾经给奥巴马写过信并且收到回信吗?

Have you ever written a letter to Obama and received a response?


In 2014, I wrote a letter to President Obama, thanking him for taking the time to speak at my graduation commencement for UC Irvine’s graduating class of 2014. He talked extensively about climate change and used this pressing issue as a catalyst to encourage my class to use our newfound knowledge to solve global issues. I graduated with a BS in Environmental Science and I thought it was so cool that A) he talked about something relevant to what I studied and B) He gave a shoutout for my program, one of the smallest at UCI.
I decided to write him a letter to express my gratitude and shared with him that I’ll be interning at the South Coast Air Quality Management District following graduation. I didn’t think anything would happen after I sent the letter off to the White House. I figured it would either get lost in a pile of mail or at most, I’d get a letter back with the President’s electronic signature.
A year and a half later, I get a call from the White House (I didn’t know at the moment, since it was an unknown number). The man on the other end shared with me that my letter was received and read and that I was invited to attend a White House State Dinner to honor the President of China, Xi JinPing. I was absolutely floored at this invitation, considering the other attendees would be some of the most well known tech giants of the world. I immediately said I was interested and less than two weeks later, my mom (my +1) and I were on our way to Washington DC.

2014年,我给奥巴马总统写了一封信, 感谢他抽时间参加UC Irvine在2014年的毕业班的毕业典礼.他聊了气候变化并以此为例鼓励我们用我们的知识处理全球问题.我在环境科学上拿了BS,这太酷了.因为他谈论了我学的东西,以及他给了我这个UCI里最小的项目以关注.
我决定给他写信告诉他我毕业后会在南部海岸的空气管理部门实习。我不知道我写信给他后会发生什么。我猜那多半会被弄丢，或者最多得到一个有他电子签名的回信。
一年半后，我接到了一个来自白宫的电话，我当时不知道，因为那是个未知的电话号码。那个人告诉我我的信收到了，然后我被邀请参加白宫接待中国主席的晚宴。我当然接受了这个邀请，考虑到其他参加者会是非常有名的世界科技巨头，我马上说我很有兴趣。之后不到两周，我和妈妈就在去华盛顿的路上了。



The night was absolutely surreal. I met the POTUS, FLOTUS, Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Cuban, John Kerry, Ne-yo, just to name a few. The food was amazing and I even sat next to the Environmental Advisor to the President and we talked about our work in air quality. Though I was one of the youngest to attend, I felt comfortable meeting so many tech CEOs and it certainly helped that everyone responded positively when I shared my story of how I was invited. Mark Cuban even gave me a high-five!

那个夜晚太梦幻了.我遇到了一大堆的名人,扎克波克什么的,其中只有几个我能叫出名字.食物很好,我甚至和奥巴马坦露了我们在空气质量方面的工作.虽然我是最年轻的参加者之一,我感到非常舒服可以遇到那么多科技界的大老板,这让为个人在我分享我市如何受邀时给娱乐正面反映.马克库班甚至和我进行了击掌



My mom had a blast too and this was definitely one of the biggest things to ever happen to us.

我妈妈也很享受，这对我们来说是个非常重要的事



Since coming back from the White House, I’ve shared this story at least 100 times to people of all backgrounds. I know people who’ve been inspired to write letters to those they look up to, in hopes that maybe they’ll get a response as well. One of my personal hobbies is journaling, so writing comes to me naturally. I’m thankful that one letter led to a once-in-a-lifetime experience! Oh and it was two days after I turned 23, so it was definitely one of the best birthday gifts thus far.

从白宫回来以后，我至少分享了这个故事100遍给各种各样的人。我知道人们被鼓励写信给那些他们仰望的人，然后期望得到回复。我的一个个人爱好是写日记。所以写东西对我来说很日常。我很感谢那封给我带来如此好的人生经历的信。哦，那之后2天后我就23岁了，那是我最好的生日礼物。

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Not me personally. But here’s a great story: Namesake Nakamal
The election of a black man as president of the United States resonated around the world. This man in a tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific renamed his kavabar after Barack Obama when he was elected.
Then a category 5 cyclone wrecked the place.

这个不是我的故事，是另一个人的。
一个黑人成为美国总统对全世界造成了重大反响。这个人生活在南太平洋一个非常小的小岛上，在奥巴马当选后重新命名了他的酒吧。随后一个五级飓风摧毁了这个地方。



A Peace Corps volunteer, on his return to the States, contacted the White House with this man’s story, and requested a replacement for the portrait that was lost during the storm.
He got a personally signed photo, that now hangs proudly over the bar.

一个和平组织的志愿者，在他回国的时候，联系白宫告诉了他们这个人的故事，申请一个新的肖像以替换暴风里遗失的那个。
然后他得到了一个个人签名照片，现在还被他骄傲的挂在酒吧里。



And in the interest of fairness, I should mention that the first Trump kava bar opened a couple of weeks ago. :)

公平起见，我应该提示一下，第一家川普酒吧几周以前已经开业了。

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I actually recently wrote President Obama, and received a response a few days later. Given the state of America right now amidst what must be the most painfully depressing election cycle in recent history, I decided I wanted to take a few moments to thank our current president for doing everything in his power to bring all Americans, of every race, religion, and walk of life, together. Because I believe he has done everything he could in his time in office.
Here’s his response:

我最近确实给奥巴马写过信，几天后我收到了回复。由于美国现在陷入了近代以来最糟糕的选举圈中，我觉得我应该花些时间感谢我们现在的总统以他的能力带给我们的所有的事。包括每一个种族，宗教，职业等等。因为我相信他做了他力所能及的所有事。
这是他的回复。



It may be a staff response, but it still feels personal to me.

这可能是一个官方回复，但是依然让我感觉很温暖（回信的内容就是看起来很多字，其实和没说一样，不翻了）

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Several years ago, when Barack Obama was the junior US senator from Ilinois, I sent him an email proposing a tax on bottled water to fund clean water projects around the world. (I was a constituent. ) A number of weeks later, I received a lengthy response via email discussing the issue and promising to pass the suggestion on to a colleague on the appropriate committee.

一些年以前，当奥巴马还是伊利诺伊州的议员的时候，我给他发了一个邮件，推荐了一个在水瓶上加水以创建世界范围内清洁水基金的项目的方案。（当时我是一个选民）。几周后，我得到他从邮件回复的长信。信里讨论了我的意见，并承诺推荐给适当的委员会里的同事。

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My son wrote to President Obama and received the standard, gracious response back. It is a neat souvenir for him and it’s a great thing for a seven-year-old to experience.

我儿子给奥巴马总统写过信，收到了标准的，情切的回复。这对他来说是最好不过的礼物，同时对于一个7岁的孩子来说，也是一段非常棒的经历。

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I think it is a waste of time. But what isn't?
I wrote a letter to him thanking him for the work he did, and apologizing to him for not voting for him.
I don't know if he wrote me back, or if it was a ghostwriter.
It doesn't matter really. It was therapeutic for me to apologize.
I would like to think he read my letter.
Along with having written it, that is enough for me.

我觉得这是浪费时间，然而什么事不算浪费时间呢？
我给他写过一封信，感谢他所做的，并向他道歉我没给他投票。
我不知道他回信没，或者是一个自动回复。
这其实无所谓，写信到钱让我很舒服。
我希望他会看我的信
对我来说，写了这份信就已经足够了。

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I wrote an email, and a week later I got an email back saying thank you for writing. I wrote about Vladimir Putin, and the problems that happen, and I asked how Obama would respond. The email talked about what the White House is trying to do. At the end, it said from President Obama. It was probably his staff, but at least I got a response.

我写过一封信，一周后我得到了回复说感谢我的来信。我写了关于普京的问题，我问奥巴马打算怎么回复？信里讨论了白宫打算做什么。新的最后，落款是奥巴马。这个应该是工作人员吧，不过至少我得到了回复。

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In school, we wrote a letter to Obama, and although our class didn’t receive a response, another one did. We each wrote individual letters, but he responded to that whole class, and since one student’s letter was on the top, he responded with a ‘Dear Mrs. (blank, for their anonymity sake)’s Class’. I thought that was pretty funny, and also really cool.

在学校的时候，我给他写过信。虽然我们班没收到回信，但是另一个班收到了。我们每个人都写了，但是他的回复是对整个班级的。他的恢复是，亲爱的，空格的，班级。这真的很有趣，同时很酷~

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Yes. I write to my elected representatives on various issues. The last time I wrote to Obama however was for a social event, notifying the Obamas of my parents’ 50th anniversary. The Obamas answered; my parents received a nice card and family photo from them which my parents treasured and kept on the mantle.

是的，我给我们的选举代表写过不少东西。最近一次我写给奥巴马是为了一个社会事件。提醒奥巴马我父母的50周年结婚纪念日。奥巴马给了回复，我得父母收到了一个漂亮的卡片和他们的家庭照片。这些东西我父母都珍藏了起来。