Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty Web Site

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus, 1883

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!"

This poem describes, in my mind, the way America should be. "Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me", how can we enscribe this on a national figure and then proceed to deport the people who flee to our land back to theirs!? How do we obtain the audacity to call this our land when it once belonged to those we now deport from it? I think the government fears the idea of letting non- US citizens come here because they fear these immigrants will become stronger and reclaim what was once theirs. It is ludacris. The poem is trying to tell us that we are a shelter for those who cannot live freely in their homeland, but we stole these peoples homeland and restrict them from returning. This poem makes me like our immagration services even less. The statue of liberty is supposed to welcome all castaways and homeless to our land, but now she will only welcome those who have a legal document permitting their entrance!? This poem makes America look like a country of hipocricy.