He showed off Cserdi, where the population was three-quarters Gypsy, to prove that it could be as ordinary as anywhere else. But he knew it was not. The stereotype that most non-Gypsy Hungarians carried in their heads was all too often true: his people (“us”, not “they”, for his people’s sins were his, he took them on himself) were work-shy, cheated, stole, and lived on handouts if they could. The jails were full of dark faces.

译文
他炫耀了拥有四分之三吉普赛人口的切尔迪，以证明这里可以和其他任何地方一样寻常。但他知道事实并非如此。大多数非吉普赛人的匈牙利人脑子里的刻板印象往往是正确的：他的人民(“我们”，而不是“他们”，因为他的人民的罪过是他的，他选择自己承担)是不愿工作的，他们诈骗，偷窃，如果可能的话，靠救济生活。监狱里全是漆黑的脸庞。

Of course, 600 years of history in Hungary had not been kind. Poverty and discrimination, fear of the Other, had stalked his people wherever they went. Under Communism everyone, including Gypsies, was meant to work. Yet it took his father some years to find a job as a miner. Until then, they lived in a shack; he had no shoes of his own until he was 13, and was sent down to scavenge for chewy, rotten meat in the pits where farmers threw the carcasses of their animals. His strongest childhood memory was hunger. Yet that was no excuse to play the victim.

译文
当然，匈牙利600年的历史并不是一帆风顺的。贫穷、歧视和对他人的恐惧一直困扰着他的人民，无论他们走到哪里。在共产主义制度下，每个人，包括吉普赛人，都应该工作。然而，他的父亲却花了好几年时间才找到一份矿工的工作。在那之前，他们住在一间小屋里；他直到13岁才有了自己的鞋子，被送到深坑里去寻找有嚼劲的腐肉，农民们把动物尸体扔在那里。他最强烈的童年记忆是饥饿。然而，这并不是扮演受害者的借口。

He had never moaned, taking any job he could get after a few indifferent years of school: sweeping floors, packing monitors, eventually becoming production manager in a mobile-phone company. Here was the lesson for “all of us”: Gypsies had to work! If they took responsibility, gained self-respect, hauled themselves up by their bootlaces, prejudice might begin to fade away. This was the task he set himself as mayor of Cserdi. It was heavy, but he set about it logically. Gypsies belonged nowhere, but if they got land, they could farm it. There was unused land in the village, a rubbish tip; once they had cleared away 15-20 lorryloads of rubble, they could plant potatoes. They then rented 1,200 hectares more.

译文
他从来没有抱怨过，在学校里过了几年无关紧要的生活后，他能找到的任何工作他都干：扫地、包装显示器，最后在一家移动电话公司担任生产经理。这是给“我们所有人”的教训：吉普赛人必须工作!如果他们负起责任，获取自尊，努力向上的话，偏见也许就会开始消失。这是他作为切尔迪村长给自己定下的任务。它很重大，但他开始地很有条理。吉普赛人不属于任何地方，但如果他们有土地，他们就可以耕种。村子里有一块未被利用的土地，一个垃圾场；一旦他们清理掉15到20卡车的碎石，他们就可以种植土豆了。然后他们又租用了1200公顷的土地。

注释

1.live on靠...过活

The family was forced to live on credit from local merchants.

这家人不得不靠向当地商人赊账生活。

2.set about着手做

Undaunted by the scale of the job, Lesley set about planning how each room should look.

莱斯利并没有被这项浩大的工程所吓倒，开始着手规划每个房间的格局。