HUDDLED MASSES? NOT SO MUCH
White House remark sparks debate
A cultural war has broken out over the Statue of Liberty.
A question about what the statue stands for cropped up earlier this week in a bitter on-camera exchange between White House senior adviser Stephen Miller and CNN’s Jim Acosta — a press room battle royale over immigration, English-speakers, and “cosmopolitan bias.
“What the president is proposing here does not sound like it’s in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration,” the network reporter asked Miller regarding new immigration policies by Donald Trump. “The Statue of Liberty says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ ”
The implication of Acosta’s description was that the statue is an invitation to immigrants.
Not so, Miller retorted: “I don’t want to get off into a whole thing about history here, but the Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty and lighting the world. It’s a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you’re referring to, that was added later, is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty.”
As Theresa Vargas said in The Washington Post, “Miller was right — if not in his tone, in his facts.”
The poem, “New Colossus,” was not part of the original statue built by the French and given to the American people as a gift to celebrate the country’s centennial. But Americans had to raise money to build the base, so poet Emma Lazarus was asked to compose the poem in 1883 as part of a fundraising effort.
A wealthy New York socialite and widely-published writer, Lazarus was also related to the first Jewish settlers in America. Inspiring the 34-year-old was her advocacy on behalf of Jewish refugees fleeing slaughter overseas.
As Time magazine pointed out, “Originally, the meaning of the monument had more to do with the abolition of slavery than with immigration. In the 1860s, French anti-slavery activist Edouard de Laboulaye had first proposed that France should make a gift of the statue, dubbed ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’ and designed by sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, both to commemorate the alliance between the U.S. and France during the American Revolution and the end of slavery in the U.S. after the Civil War, according to the National Park Service.”
In 1903, the poem was inscribed on the statue’s base, just as millions of immigrants were steaming into New York harbour — 23.5 million persons immigrated between 1880 and 1920.
In the years since, the poem became more popular and the statue and immigration became more linked.
Time reported that Esther Schor, who wrote a biography of the author, said in 2011, “Emma Lazarus was the first American to make any sense of this statue.”
The U.S. National Park Service says Lazarus’s sonnet depicts the statue “as the ‘Mother of Exiles’: a symbol of immigration and opportunity — symbols associated with the Statue of Liberty today.”
Miller has since come under fire for “dismissing” the statue’s meaning.
Meanwhile, the president’s proposed legislation unveiled Wednesday would dramatically overhaul the U.S. immigration system. If passed, the bill would lead to a significant decrease in the number of green cards issued to immigrants and eliminate some benefits enjoyed by prospective immigrants with family members already here. Instead, applicants with advanced degrees, particular skills, or job offers would be given preference.
A requirement that immigrants know English before coming to the U.S., also roused Acosta to ask Miller, “Are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?”
Miller replied, “I am shocked at your statement, that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree ... That is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant and foolish things you have ever said.”
EMMA LAZARUS WAS THE FIRST AMERICAN TO MAKE ANY SENSE OF THIS STATUE.