Sunday marks the birthday of Emma Lazarus, a remarkable woman who we know remarkably little about, considering that the last five lines from her poem “The New Colossus” were inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, immortalizing her words and forever changing the message of the lady with the lamp for people all over the world.
Originally, the statue in New York Harbor was conceived as “Liberty Enlightening the World,” a more aggressive monument designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and given to us by France.
The statue’s design was based on a lighthouse that the sculptor had imagined for the Suez Canal, “Egypt carrying the light to Asia,” a declaration of liberty triumphant. Welcoming immigrants had nothing to do with it, although Emma’s poem changed the very meaning the statue now represents.
Lazarus’ poem was written in 1883 in order to help raise money for a needed pedestal for the statue. Her poem was not inscribed on the statue until 1903, after Emma’s death. It is interesting to note that she was not an immigrant herself, but a fourth-generation Sephardic Jew from a very wealthy family.
One of her cousins served on the Supreme Court, and another relative was a founder of Barnard College. In 1882, moved by the pogroms taking place in Russia, she began to work for Jewish causes and for the refugees who were fleeing to the United States. Out of her work, the poem “The New Colossus” took shape.
“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
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!”
-Albert Einstein, Germany, physicist
-Ieoh Ming Pei, China, architect
-Madeline Albright, Czechoslovakia, former secretary of state
-Joseph Pulitzer, Hungary, newspaperman and founder of Pulitzer Prizes
-Felix Frankfurter, Austria, Supreme Court justice
-Irving Berlin, Russia, songwriter and composer of “God Bless America”
-Ang Lee, Taiwan, director and producer
-St. Frances X. Cabrini, Italy, first American saint
-Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Lahore, India, Nobel laureate, physics
-Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austria, actor and California governor
-Hakeem Olajuwon, Lagos, Nigeria, basketball star called “The Dream”
-Al Jolson, Lithuania, entertainer
-Bob Hope, Britain, entertainer
-Andrew Carnegie, Scotland, industrialist
-Levi Strauss, Germany, developed American jeans
-Elie Wiesel, Romania, Nobel Peace Prize winner
-Liz Claiborne, Belgium, fashion designer
-Gloria Estefan, Cuba, entertainer
Contact Jean Cherni, certified senior adviser for Senior Living Solutions and Pearce Plus, a helpful, full-service program for seniors contemplating a move, at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 15 The Ponds at 101 Hotchkiss Grove, Branford 06405.
