2003 年12 月英语二级笔译实务试题 Section 1: English – Chinese Translation (英译汉) Part A Nowhere to Go For the latest on the pursuit of the American Dream in Silicon Valley, all you have to do is to talk to someone like “Nagaraj” (who didn’t want to reveal his real name). He’s an Indian immigrant who, like many other Indian engineers, came to America recently on an H-1B visa, which allows skilled workers to be employed by one company for as many as six years. But one morning last month, Nagaraj and a half dozen other Indian workers with H-1Bs were called into a conference room in their San Francisco technology-consulting firm and told they were being laid off. The reason: weakening economic conditions in Silicon Valley, “It was the shock of my lifetime,” says Nagaraj. This is not a normal bear-market sob story. According to federal regulation, Nagaraj and his colleagues have two choices. They must either return to India, or find another job in a tight labor market and hope that the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) allow them to transfer their visa to the new company. And the law doesn’t allow them to earn a pay-check until all the paperwork winds its way through the INS bureaucracy. “How am I going to survive without any job and without any income?” Nagaraj wonders. Until recently, H-1B visas were championed by Silicon Valley companies as the solution to the region’s shortage of programmers and engineers. First issued by the INS in 1992, they attract skilled workers from other countries, many of whom bring families with them, lay down roots and apply for the more permanent green cards. Through February 2000, more than 81,000 worker held such visas — but wi...
