The poem The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus, engraved on a plaque on the Statue of Liberty’s base is indicative of American spirit. Many people have taken this “Mosque” debate as an opportunity to reflect on American values which, sadly, many Americans seem to have either forgotten or not known. The blogosphere in particular has been giving attention to this poem, and so I took the time to reread it. It has been years and it means a lot more to me now than it did years ago, as a kid in school without a greater sense of the world. I suspect it’ll mean even more as I age.
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 an English teacher, I, of course, love poetry and am often moved by it. This is absolutely the case with The New Colossus. Despite my bloggery cynicism, I am both an idealist and intensely passionate about life. In fact, my vocal nature is a product of a positive vision I have for the world around me.
While I may hesitate to be blindly nationalistic, sometimes cringing when people yell about America being better than every other country in the world, I do agree that our basic values, ensconced in the Constitution, lay the groundwork for what could easily be the greatest nation on the planet. Surely, we are the most influential and powerful. But influence and power are not what comprise greatness. Instead, I see greatness as a willingness to learn and grow. To become better. This is why I find teaching so rewarding. It may sound as though learning and growing are simple, generic ideals for a nation, but what lies behind those two ideas is a willingness to admit that we don’t know everything.
Socrates, in Plato’s dialogues, was searching Greece for the wisest man in the country. The Oracle told him that in fact he was the wisest man. What qualified him? I’m paraphrasing here, but he said, “The only thing I know is that I do not know anything.” While I tend to speak authoritatively on my blog, I will always listen, because through listening, I learn, and through learning, I grow. I try to instill this idea in my students. I like to see this manifest itself in my country.
So how does this relate to The New Colossus?
The lines that stand out famously are “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
What a profound statement to make and to place at the base of one of America’s greatest symbol of freedom, the site immigrants coming through Ellis Island would see: the Statue of Liberty.
America built itself on welcoming others, but not quite wealthy aristocratic transplants. No. The tired. The poor. The disenfranchised. The victims of persecution.
In reflecting on this poem, I see that in the America of now we instead neglect the tired, the poor, and the disenfranchised. Examples abound, the Islamic Community Center not at, but near Ground Zero is merely the latest.
Why is this?
America is the New Colossus. The old, the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Our nation is a wonder of the world for all the reasons I wrote above: our values, our willingness to welcome and accept the castaways of the world, and our ability to see the worth in everybody regardless of race or creed.
So, the poet writes, “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” and in so proclaiming, dismisses foreign nationalism. Sure, there are millennia of history in the nations of Western Europe, the origin of many immigrants of the time the poem was written. Their storied pomp, their sense of worth derived from their past, when coming to America, is to be checked at the door. We don’t want it. Our Constitution is a living document and the Founders very wisely intended this. It is a guide, meant to usher us into the future. It’s how we built this nation into the powerhouse it has become.
The past is to be learned from, but I often fear that we forget the future, sometimes. What does the wave of negativity directed at the construction of this Islamic Community Center mean for our future? We are saying, in effect, “You are not welcome.” Certainly, it’s a very different message than the one carried both symbolically and literally on the Statue of Liberty.
Cross-posted at NEPArtisan.com