Clive Thompson has a great post on his blog about “The New Colossus, ” Emma Lazarus’s poem about the Statue of Liberty, welcoming immigrants into the country:
You have, without doubt, heard this part:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”They’re genuinely stirring lines! American politicians and businesspeople love to quote them, because they beautifully evoke the image of America as a worldwide beacon of liberty. Listen to any speech about immigration, and you’ll hear this passage.
But the poem doesn’t end there. The Statue of Liberty goes on to describe, in more depth, the type of immigrants she’s talking about. Let’s extend the quote a bit further:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”“The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Now, that is a gut-punch of a line. (Purely as a matter of verse, the way those iambs land on the rhyming syllables of the first two words — the WRE-tched RE-fuse — is like a pneumatic naildriver. WHAM WHAM WHAM! I love it.)
But the point is, this additional line complicates the political picture a bit, doesn’t it?
As time has gone on, the “masses yearning to breathe” line has become much more prevalent in our literature and writings. The “wretched refuse” line? Not so much.
The “wretched refuse” line isn’t much talked about these days, both because a lot of people don’t even know it exists, and because it’s politically inconvenient. As Thompson explains, we like to talk about immigrants who are the best and the brightest, and who add value and innovation to our country. The original poem conceived of compassion as an end in and of itself.
It reminds me of this Bible passage in Matthew 25:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
As the immigration battle rages this year, I think it will be a good sentiment to keep in mind.