{"id":119,"date":"2018-02-18T21:45:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T02:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/?p=119"},"modified":"2018-02-18T21:45:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T02:45:04","slug":"the-statue-of-liberty-the-new-colossus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/2018\/02\/18\/the-statue-of-liberty-the-new-colossus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Statue of Liberty – The New Colossus"},"content":{"rendered":"

For another course this past week, I was assigned to both read and analyze Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus”. For those who aren’t are, this poem by Lazarus is embedded into a plaque in front of the Statue of Liberty in NY to emphasize on America’s presumed acceptance of all immigrants here in ‘the land of the free’.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The part of the poem that stuck with me the most was when Lazarus wrote:\u00a0\u201cGive me your tired, your poor,\u00a0Your\u00a0huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the\u00a0homeless, the tempest-tost\u00a0to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!\u201d (lines 10-14). Originally, these lines were\u00a0interpreted\u00a0to be accepting of immigrants from all specs of life \u2013\u00a0varying in cultures, ethnicities, race and\u00a0socioeconomic levels.\u00a0America\u00a0was\u00a0portrayed\u00a0as a nation that indiscriminately welcomed every hard working being into this \u2018glorious\u2019 place. Lazarus symbolized the entrance into the U.S as a \u2018golden door\u2019, as if life in America for\u00a0ALL is\u00a0anywhere close to being\u00a0heaven-like. Completely ignoring\u00a0the fatal relationships between Europeans\u00a0and \u2018others\u2019 in America.\u00a0This\u00a0sonnet depicting hope for all immigrants in America has caused controversy in today\u2019s time, given the presidency of Donald Trump and\u00a0his\u00a0blatant\u00a0disapproval\u00a0and disregard\u00a0of immigrants.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0contemporary recontextualization of this piece is that America is indeed not a place for ALL immigrants. Since the beginning of\u00a0America as a nation, European colonists\u00a0have\u00a0exploited people with cultural and ethnic differences which were deemed inferior for\u00a0they\u00a0didn\u2019t coincide with theirs.\u00a0From the slaughtering of America\u00a0natives to\u00a0the\u00a0enslavement\u00a0of Africans off of Africa\u2019s Western Coast, America has a history of abusing the people they\u2019ve viewed as \u201cdifferent\u201d. The realization that America is indeed not a place welcoming of immigrants as the Statue of Liberty represents can be seen in Donald Trump\u2019s recent comments on immigrants, in addition to his congressional proposal\u00a0to construct\u00a0an\u00a0$18 billion dollar\u00a0border wall to keep all Mexicans from obtaining illegal entrance into the U.S.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I just found this poem to be\u00a0intriguing\u00a0given the\u00a0recontextualization\u00a0of it. Published in 1883, this piece still causes controversy today as people use this poem to\u00a0reiterate\u00a0the ideologies of America versus its actual\u00a0reality. America presumes itself as a nation accepting of all, but it is evident that race is a major factor in one’s place here in America’s racial\u00a0hierarchy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lazarus, Emma. “The New Colossus.”\u00a0Historic American Documents<\/i>. Lit2Go Edition. 1883. Web. <http:\/\/etc.usf.edu\/lit2go\/133\/historic-american-documents\/4959\/the-new-colossus\/>. February 18, 2018.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For another course this past week, I was assigned to both read and analyze Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus”. For those who aren’t are, this poem by Lazarus is embedded into a plaque in front of the Statue of Liberty in NY to emphasize on America’s presumed acceptance of all immigrants here in ‘the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3741,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mixingitup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}