Did Trump et al forget the poem on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty?
The famous lines are at the end of the poem:
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!
Emma Lazarus wrote that on November 2, 1883.
Lady Liberty was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States and dedicated on October 28, 1886. It was to honor America’s centennial and friendship with France. (It didn’t come with the pedestal.)
This nation was built by people fleeing poverty and oppression for the most part. The exception were Africans who were forced here as slaves, but their forced labor was important for America’s development. (And their descendants still haven’t been treated as they should be.)
Abraham Lincoln pointed out that labor was superior to capital. It is, after all, labor that creates the capital needed for investment. I don’t care how rich someone is, if other people aren’t working, their money is useless.
It is the poor and oppressed who over the history of this nation have provided the fuel for economic growth. Many lived in poverty. They were abused and cheated by industrialists who became famous and wealthy on the backs of their labor. Others lived in slavery. Their labor provided their “owners” with the lifestyle of the rich.
Whether they came here fleeing oppression or in chains, it was their labor which built this nation.
But this nation is no stranger to anti-immigrant sentiments. Ben Franklin wrote about the danger German immigrants posed to the American way of life. In the 1840s, the American Party, or No Nothings, opposed immigration. In 1882, Chinese laborers were banned for 10 years. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt used an executive order to ban Japanese and Korean laborers.
In 1917, legislation banned immigrants from Asia, Mexico, and Mediterranean nations. People from Northern and Western Europe were fine. The others not so much. That law stayed on the books until 1953. Then in 1924, the United States set quotas for European nations, setting limits for each country based on the 1890 U.S. census. It was this law, as well as anti-Semitism in the State Department, which kept Jews fleeing the Holocaust from entering the United States.
So, in a way, Trump is right in step with the worst part of American history –- the part that ignores who really built this nation and made it great.
When we attack immigrants who are fleeing oppression and poverty, we are attacking the kind of people who made this country great. They, and all of us, came from all over the world in search of a better life. (Even the ancestors of Native Americans were immigrants. They came in prehistoric times. Their claim to the land is based on being here first.)
If we want to stay great, we need to welcome these new immigrants as they and their children contribute to the rich fabric of what is America and to our economy. Ben Franklin was wrong about the 18th century German immigrants. Later anti-immigrant people were also wrong.
By the way, this is Emma Lazarus’s complete poem:
The New Colossus
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!"
Commentaires