One day, after her husband had died, she was traveling on a train to visit her daughter,

她的丈夫去世后，她乘火车前往女儿家探望，

and she met and took an interested in a light-skinned man in the same railway car.

她在火车上遇见一个肤色很淡的男青年，并对他产生好感。

What happened next is something that Aunt Joan told only my mother years later, with the greatest of shame.

但接下来发生的事情，琼阿姨说在几年后只对我的母亲说过，她觉得非常羞愧。

When she got off the train, she walked right by her daughter, disowning her own flesh and blood,

当走下火车，她走在女儿的右边，因为她的女儿没有继承她的肤色基因，

because she did not want a man so light-skinned and desirable to know that she had borne a daughter so dark.

她不想一个如此可爱的白人男青年知道她生了个这么黑的女儿。

In the 1960s, my mother wrote a book about her experiences.

20世纪60年代，我的母亲写了一本关于她人生经历的书，

It was entitled Brown Face, Big Master, the "Brown Face" referring to herself and the "Big Master" referring, in the Jamaica dialect, to God.

书名为《棕色面孔，大主人》。“棕色面孔”是指她自己，“大主人”在牙买加方言中是指上帝的意思。

At one point, she describes a time just after my parents were married when they were living in London and my eldest brother was still a baby.

有一次，她写到她和我父亲到伦敦生活，那是他们刚结婚不久，我的大哥还是一个婴儿。

They were looking for an apartment, and after a long search, my father found one in a London suburb.

他们正在找公寓，找了很久也没有找到，后来我的父亲在伦敦郊区找到一所公寓。

On the day after they moved in, however, the landlady ordered them out.

但是，就在他们搬进来的第二天，房东太太命令他们搬走。

"You didn't tell my your wife was Jamaican," she told my father in a rage.

“你没有告诉我，你的妻子是牙买加人。”她很愤怒地对我的父亲说。

In her book, my mother describes her long struggle to make sense of this humiliation, to reconcile her experience with her faith.

在书中，我的母亲描述了她长期与这种侮辱进行的思想斗争，以便使她的经历与她的信仰协调。

In the end, she was forced to acknowledge that anger was not an option,

最后，她不得不接受的事实是，愤怒不是解决办法。

that as a colored Jamaican whose family has benefited for generations from the hierarchy of race,

作为一个有色人种的牙买加人，一个种族阶级世代传承的家庭，

she could hardly reproach another for the impulse to pide people by the shade of their skin.

她几乎无法再责备他人按肤色划分人的地位高低：