美联社
文件-第一夫人吉尔·拜登对杰克逊-梅德加·威利酒店记者的提问做出回应
拉斯维加斯——她的丈夫参加了帮助国家统一的运动，但是吉尔·拜登说“治愈”一个被致命的疫情、自然和其他灾难以及深刻的政治两极分化所伤害的国家也是她作为第一夫人的主要角色之一。
在结束了她认为自己是乔·拜登总统团队关键成员的一年后，第一夫人告诉美联社，她发现自己承担了一个“我没想到的角色，这就像一个治愈的角色，因为我们作为一个国家面临了这么多。”
吉尔·拜登(Jill Biden)在拉斯维加斯一家酒店的游泳池旁坐在阳光下发表讲话，一天前，她和总统安慰了科罗拉多州路易斯维尔的家庭，那里的一大片房屋在12月下旬的一场野火中被烧毁。当人们站在烧焦的废墟前时，她拥抱着他们，随后她向在大火中丧生的狗和其他宠物表示公众哀悼。
这种访问为白宫提供了越来越难得的机会，让其走出华盛顿的党派僵局。在很大程度上，吉尔·拜登并没有陷入首都的狂热之中，而是给了她一个机会，在她丈夫的政府和全国各地的社区之间担任某种大使，而不管他们的政治倾向如何。
她对科罗拉多州的访问，以及看望一场致命的圣诞游行的受害者碰撞她说，在威斯康辛州的沃克夏，以及上周五去肯塔基州龙卷风肆虐的地区旅行，是她感受到的责任的“主要例子”。这是她作为一个从自然灾害或其他悲剧中幸存下来的普通人想要的。
拜登说:“我想知道我的总统和第一夫人是否关心我。“我认为这是我工作的一个重要部分。我的意思是，只是帮助人们度过艰难时期。”
70岁的拜登经历了她那份艰难。
她和乔·拜登结婚不到五年，他的第一任妻子和年幼的女儿在1972年的一场车祸中丧生，26岁时，她成为他两个幸存的小儿子的母亲。2015年，这对夫妇埋葬了其中一个男孩，博，他在46岁时死于脑癌。
第一夫人因乳腺癌失去了几个亲密的朋友，她同情科罗拉多州的人们，因为她自己在特拉华州的家曾在雷击后着火。
拜登说:“我知道我们在生活中经历了哪些艰难的事情，我也知道这些善举对我和乔来说意味着什么。“所以我才知道当你出现的时候会有什么不同。我认为露面真的很重要。”
在过去的一年里，她出现在许多地方，以远超总统的速度在疫情旅行——同时继续她的另一份全职工作:在北弗吉尼亚社区学院担任英语和写作教授。她从2009年开始在那里教书。
拜登是第一位继续她的职业生涯的第一夫人——她是一名终身教师——并在白宫外从事有偿工作。
这位在新泽西州出生、在宾夕法尼亚州长大的第一夫人在过去的一年里走访了35个州的学校、新冠肺炎疫苗接种点、军事基地、印第安人保留地和其他地方。其中包括十几个主要是南方的州，这些州没有投票给她的丈夫当总统。相比之下，他在24个州着陆，不包括去特拉华州的旅行。
莱德大学教授迈拉·古丁(Myra Gutin)写道:“疫情并没有对她造成太大的限制，她能够向前迈进，做所有这些事情:教导和倡导人们接种疫苗，并去一些军事设施和癌症中心参观。”。“那是相当大的。”
在疫苗接种点，吉尔·拜登鼓励人们得到保护，并与成年人和孩子握手，让他们接受注射。在学校，她参观了教室，并与学生们谈论了在疫情期间写日记来帮助他们应对。在军事基地，她感谢军人配偶和其他家庭成员与他们的亲人一起牺牲。
在政策方面，第一夫人白宫支持军人家庭的倡议“联合力量”和国家安全委员会去年宣布了第一轮政府承诺，帮助军人配偶解决就业、儿童保育和其他问题。
但她遭遇了政策失败，因为总统放弃了一项免费社区大学的提议——她多年来一直在倡导这项提议——在一些关键的民主党参议员反对一揽子计划的规模后，她放弃了一项全面的社会福利和气候变化法案。
其他总统的妻子也扮演了民族治疗师的角色。俄亥俄大学研究第一夫人的历史教授凯瑟琳·杰利森回忆了露西·韦伯·海斯在内战后和重建期间的行为。
杰利森说，总统卢瑟福·b·海斯的妻子海斯展示了美国的植物和野生动物，“所有地区的美国人都可以落后于它们”。海斯还邀请内战对立的州的代表参加社交活动。
杰利森说:“她努力以各种有趣的方式统一国家。
除了治疗师的角色，吉尔·拜登还履行了在海外代表美国的传统第一夫人职能。
她独自飞往东京，在推迟的2020年奥运会上支持美国运动员。她还陪同总统出访英国和罗马。
吉尔·拜登回忆说，她丈夫的就职典礼是在他之前两次失败的总统尝试之后举行的，“让我大吃一惊”。
对她来说，白宫“是一个神奇的地方。”当她醒来时，她想:“哇，看看我在哪里。”但她也觉得这个国家有很多工作要做，正因为如此，她不能“拿我的咖啡，坐在床上看新闻。”
“我一直说，如果给我这个平台，我绝不会浪费它。没有一天，”第一夫人说。“这就是为什么当我每天醒来时，我会想，‘今天我能做什么?...我在做什么?我要去哪里?策略是什么?“有什么计划?”"
她对2022年的计划包括继续关注教育、军人家庭和做更多促进癌症研究的工作。她将继续教书。
吉尔·拜登补充说:“但我想再加上一些其他的东西。”她描述了自己将艺术和艺术家带到白宫的愿望，以及她希望疫情的衰落足以让白宫重新向游客开放，并允许更多的社交活动。
“这将是激动人心的一年。对疫情来说，这一定是更好的一年，”第一夫人说。“我的意思是每个人，我认为这个国家的每个人都在说，‘来吧，这将是更好的一年。’"
Jill Biden: I didn't expect 'healing role' as first lady
LAS VEGAS -- Her husband campaigned to help unite the country, butJill Bidensays “healing” a nation wounded by a deadly pandemic, natural and other disasters and deep political polarization is among her chief roles as first lady, too.
Wrapping up a year in which she saw herself as a key member of President Joe Biden's team, the first lady told The Associated Press that she found herself taking on a role that "I didn't kind of expect, which was like a healing role, because we’ve faced so much as a nation.”
Jill Biden spoke sitting in the sunshine near a swimming pool at a Las Vegas hotel a day after she and the president comforted families in Louisville, Colorado, where a huge swath of homes burned to the ground in a late December wildfire. She hugged people as they stood in front of the charred ruins of their lives and later offered public condolences for dogs and other pets killed in the blaze.
Such trips offer increasingly rare opportunities for the White House to step out of the partisan gridlock that defines Washington. For the most part, Jill Biden isn't caught up in the capital's frenzy, giving her the chance instead to serve as something of an ambassador between her husband's administration and communities across the country, regardless of their political leanings.
Her visits to Colorado and to see victims of a deadly Christmas paradecrashin Waukesha, Wisconsin, and a trip last Friday to tornado-ravaged areas of Kentucky are a “prime example” of the responsibility she feels, she said. It's what she would want as a regular person who survived a natural disaster or other tragedy.
“I would want to know that my president and first lady cared about me,” Biden said. "I think that’s an important part of what I do. I mean, just helping people through the tough times.”
Biden, 70, has experienced her share of tough times.
She and Joe Biden wed less than five years after his first wife and infant daughter were killed in a 1972 automobile crash, and at age 26 she became a mother to his two surviving young sons. In 2015, the couple buried one of those boys, Beau, after he died of brain cancer at age 46.
The first lady has lost several close friends to breast cancer, and empathized with the people in Colorado because her own home in Delaware once caught fire after a lightning strike.
“I know the tough things that we’ve been through in our life and I know the, how much the acts of kindness have meant to me and to Joe,” Biden said. “So I just know what a difference it makes when you show up. I think showing up is really important.”
She showed up in a lot of places in the year past, traveling in the middle of a pandemic at a pace that far exceeded the president's — all while continuing her other full-time job: as an English and writing professor at Northern Virginia Community College. She has taught there since 2009.
Biden is the first first lady to continue her career — she's a lifelong teacher — and hold a paying job outside the White House.
The New Jersey-born, Pennsylvania-raised first lady spent the past year dropping in at schools, COVID-19 vaccination sites, military bases, Native American reservations and other locations in 35 states. That includes a dozen mostly Southern states that did not vote for her husband for president. By contrast, he touched down in 24 states, excluding trips home to Delaware.
“The pandemic really did not constrain her a great deal and she was able to move forward and do all of these things: teach and advocate for people to get vaccinated and make some visits to military installations and cancer centers,” said Myra Gutin, a professor at Rider University who writes about first ladies. “That's pretty major.”
At vaccination sites, Jill Biden encouraged people to get protected and held hands with both grown-ups and kids getting their jabs. At schools, she toured classrooms and spoke with students about writing in journals to help them cope during the pandemic. At military bases, she thanked military spouses and other family members for sacrificing alongside their loved ones in uniform.
On the policy front, Joining Forces, the first lady's White House initiative to support military families, and the National Security Council last year announced a first round of administration commitments to help military spouses with employment, child care and other matters.
But she suffered a policy defeat when the president dropped a proposal for tuition-free community college — something she has spent years advocating for — from a sweeping social welfare and climate change bill after some key Democratic senators objected to the size of the package.
Other presidents' wives also have played the role of national healer. Katherine Jellison, a history professor at Ohio University who studies first ladies, recalled the actions of Lucy Webb Hayes after the Civil War and during Reconstruction.
Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, showcased American plants and wildlife, “something that Americans from all regions could get behind,” by having them depicted on White House china, Jellison said. Hayes also invited representatives from states that were on opposite sides of the Civil War to social events.
“She worked hard to unify the country in a variety of interesting ways,” Jellison said.
Besides her role as healer, Jill Biden also fulfilled the traditional first lady function of representing the United States abroad.
She flew off on one solo foreign trip, to Tokyo to root for U.S. athletes at the delayed 2020 Olympic Games. She also accompanied the president on overseas trips to England and Rome.
Her husband's inauguration, coming after his two earlier failed attempts at the presidency, “just took my breath away," Jill Biden recalled.
For her, the White House “is a magical place.” When she wakes up, she thinks, “Wow, look where I am.” But she also feels there's a lot of work to do in the country and, because of that, she can't “get my coffee and sit in bed and watch the news."
“I’ve always said that if I were ever given this platform I would never waste it. Not one day," the first lady said. “That’s why when I wake every day I think, ’What can I do today? ... What am I doing? Where am I going? What’s the strategy? What’s the plan?'”
Her plans for 2022 include keeping her focus on education, military families and doing more work promoting cancer research. She will continue to teach.
“But then I want to layer some other things on,” Jill Biden added, describing her desire to bring art and artists to the White House and her hope that the pandemic will recede enough to allow the White House to reopen to tourists and more socializing.
“It's going to be an exciting year. It’s got to be a better year with the pandemic," the first lady said. "I mean everybody, I think everybody across this country is saying, ‘C’mon, it’s got to be a better year.'”
