eke out #2

CNNより、9月9日付けのアメリカ移民問題に関する記事です。

ここで気になった表現はいくつかありましたが、‟eke out”に注目しました。

‟eke out”で「〈不足分〉を[〜で]補う」または「〈生計を〉なんとかして立てる、何とか〜を達成する」という意味になります。ここでは後者の意味で使われています。

また、‟eke out an existence (a living)” で「なんとかして生計を立てる」のように使用します。この‟existence” は「存在」という意味ではなく「（特に恵まれない）生活、暮らしぶり」という意味で用いられています。日本語の「糊口を凌ぐ」に相当する表現でしょうか。（Inaho)

Waits for immigration status -- the legal way -- can be long and frustrating
（一部省略）
'I need to get out of this darkness'

Yesenia has always held to one belief: If you do good things in life, good things will come to you.

So she keeps a smile on her face as she wakes up before the sun ascends over Los Angeles, gets herself ready and climbs into the driver's seat of the school bus she drives more than 50 miles a day. She hasn't missed a single day of work this year.

At 37, she is a working single mom. She's hardly rich but has managed to eke out a life for herself and her two daughters. She has never looked back on the day that her parents brought her over the border from Mexico.

She was 12 then, the youngest of nine siblings. They were already in this country. Her father wanted them to have a better life than the one he had in Mexico.

There's just one dark cloud hanging over her life.

Everyone in her family became U.S. citizens or permanent residents. But Yesenia is still waiting.

One of her sisters sponsored her for permanent residency, or a green card, in 1997. The latest State Department visa bulletin indicates that Mexicans sponsored by a sibling who filed by January 22, 1997, are just now having their applications considered. Yesenia, who asked that her full name be withheld because she is undocumented, hopes she will receive a call soon for an interview.

"I have waited for a long time," she said. "I need a break. I need to get out of this darkness."

She came close to deportation once but found relief through Obama's executive order on prosecutorial discretion in 2012. Removal proceedings against her were canceled because she arrived in America as a child, has lived here for 24 years and now has two children who are U.S. citizens.

"I have a lot more peace of mind now," she said. "But it's frustrating. I also understand it's the law."

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/09/08/us/immigration-visa-long-waits/index.html?iref=allsearch

‟eke out"は過去にも取り上げられております。
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20100920/1284989287