Give Us Your Tired and Poor Meant What It Said

When Emma Lazarus wrote her poem The New Colossus, to raise money for the pedestal of the what is now called the Statue of Liberty, the statue was new and a gift of France.  A representation of the Libertas, the  Roman Goddess of  Liberty and was initially intended to represent the freedom that comes with the rising of republican style of government and the growth of democratic ideals.  The broken shackles on her feet were there to represent the very recent end of slavery in the United States.  But it served more as a different symbol for many, a symbol of hope. It was a symbol to the waves of immigrants who came to New York Harbor as their first stop to a new life and when Ellis Island opened it was the milestone that many on ships entering the New World saw and felt like they made it.  While it still stands for Liberty, Freedom and Democracy it also was transformed when Lazarus' poem was added to the base.  She liken the statue to Greed colossus of Rhodes, another great statue of the ancient world.  She went on to give her maternal attributes as if to suggest that she welcomed to a new home those who were tossed away by their countries of origin or fled from fear or famine.  Lazarus showed a new vision of the still young country to welcome the stranger and we will help them realize their better selves.  That was sometimes not a common sentiment in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Much like today, Immigration was a hot button issue.  But in the last few weeks we have seen the Trump administration try to rewrite Lazarus' poem or completely dismiss it because of their own hatred of immigrants and seemingly immigrants of color.  We must remember who we were when we the statue rose over the New York Harbor.  We have heard administration officials, like Steven Miller, say the poem had nothing to do with the statue.  This radically insane take tried to bring out the idea of the original intent of the statue, but that was a soon faded reality.  But without the poem, the statue can't be a symbol of who we are as a nation, a nation of people who have worked together from many different places in the world.  A tapestry of traditions, cultures, faiths and races.  Something that seems to scare this administration.

Worse than Steven Miller's notion that the poem is meaningless was a recent series of interviews with Ken Cuccinelli, the acting Director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service.  First he said that the poem was better written to say "give us your tired you poor your huddled masses who can stand on their own two feet".  Later he said that Lazarus' poem was only about European immigrants.  First of all history doesn't agree with Cuccenelli's first statement.  While there was a test that people immigrating to the US were not simply going to be wards of the state, that was not a hard and fast rule.  In fact the first immigrants through Ellis Island were unaccompanied minors.  If there was someone to reach out to people and they had potential they were allowed into the country.  Cuccenelli was seemingly trying to suggest those immigrants on the southern border were going to simply be wards of the state.  But like Ellis Island, if they were allowed in, they could work and build themselves up.  Many did, look at the businesses built by immigrants, who like today's immigrants, were fleeing dangerous government supported or allowed violence.  Only about 2% of the people who entered the country after passing the Statue of Liberty, were permanently turned back.  

But the second piece is a growing worry for many people, both people living here in the United States and those who may some day want to make this country their home.  The President has said in the past he would rather have immigrants from a place like Norway, something he has repeated.  Cuccenelli said that Lazarus and thus the immigration expectation of the time was for Europeans.  This appears to be code for white people.  Again, this is just nonsense as the poem references that the Mother of Exiles From he beacon-hand glows world-wide.  I think it is clear that Lazarus' call was for all those suffering under the governments of the world that hurt more than helped their people.  True the vast majority of people who immigrated through Ellis Island were Europeans, but it was also the closest port of entry for Europe.  America's open doors did not have a White Way to enter.  We were open to all. 

We might say that this is just a little election rhetoric to gin up the base and make people feel we liberals just want open borders and an immigration free-for-all.  But there are real world issues when this thinking influences executive action.  We have seen it in the inhumane ways that people on the border have been treated.  In fact it took a federal court judge ruling to push the Trump administration to provide simple, everyday hygiene products and opportunities to detainees.  Think about that, a judge had to rule on whether the United States of America can avoid giving people, including children, an opportunity to wash themselves and brush their teeth.  But those federal courts could rule in other ways in the future if we aren't diligent.  President Trump has nominated Judge Steven Menashi to the Court of Appeals one step down from the Supreme Court.  He wrote in a law journal that a country cannot function unless it was a monoculture.  I won't bore you with the details but the argument was that a country with many sub-culture cannot find a common link to focus on and thus will fail.  This is an old racist argument that we must all be the same in order to survive and it was used in countries that oppressed minority populations by not giving them rights or status.  That is the antithesis of the American experiment.  This is not normal and not okay.  

I truly believe our government is broken, and while the adage from Game of Thrones, that the small folks care little who sits on the Iron Throne that should never be the case for our Republic.  The government is us.  When we elect people they act in our name.  If you believe that immigration has made this country stronger, if you believe that there was a time when we welcomed the stranger and if you believe that we are better together it is time to rise. This is the direction our country is going.  If you believe we should be purged of diversity, that we should close up our borders, that we should only allow people to thrive who are of a single culture, you really need to explain that to me.  Either way take a moment to read what a young woman in the 1880s wrote about a symbol Americans seem to love and are being told it doesn't stand for what it stands for: 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

As you read this think about your own ancestors, how and why they got here and what they might say to a country that right now, at this moment, is demonizing the other.  I don't think they would like what they see.