Coming to America (1951) by Louis Stettner

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On New Year’s Day I found myself on the Staten Island Ferry.  In the area for other reasons, my youngest daughter and I took the boat ride on a whim.  During the return trip to Manhattan I became aware of the voices around me.  Virtually none of them were in English.  Maybe more than the usual number of visitors were on board, since New Year’s Eve had been the night before.  Some people were still wearing party hats.

As the ferry approached the Statue of Liberty everyone seemed to pay attention.  The two Japanese girls sitting opposite us stopped taking selfies together, and one took out her camera.  Even children were aware, one stepped right in front of us with a cellphone to take pictures.

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-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The America represented by that statue doesn’t exist today.  Instead we have atrocities and an unnecessary & horrifying humanitarian crisis on our border. Children in cages, tents in the desert. Concentration camps, children dying.

Regardless, these people on the ferry were drawn to the sight of her, the torch held high.  The New Colossus.  And to the right I saw Ellis Island, the historic front door to America through which so many immigrants flowed.  And I got a sense of what that statue and the idea of America have always meant to the people of the world: that they too are welcome here.  And I felt a lump in my throat.  And then I felt ashamed of what we’ve become, and how we’ve betrayed those who sacrifice everything to seek entry here.