What does this mean to you

[Capstone]

So nice that you know her intentions and the Intentions of the U.S government in Putting it on the Statue an whom it refereed an didn't refer to, a very neat power you have there!!

Yeah, the power to actually do the tiniest bit of research before opening my cake-hole IS pretty neat. You should try it sometime.

From here:

[...] In the early 1880's, Emma became aware of the harsh discrimination against Jews who lived in Eastern Europe, especially those under the rule of Russia's newest czar. Fortunately, many of these outcasts were able to make the long and arduous trek. walking across Europe to sail in steerage, in unimaginably harsh circumstances, for weeks across the unpredictable Atlantic Ocean, to the "golden medina, the United States where the streets were said to have been paved with gold. In reality, they found life on the Lower East Side of New York as inhospitable in its own way as had been the shtetls from which they fled. These "huddled masses" became a topic for discussion and concern for Manhattan's elite. Soon, Emma Lazarus participated in the conversation.

She was so taken with what she would see, read and hear that she began to volunteer in institutions set up for helping these new "greenhorns," teaching them to read and learn English.

She became their spokesperson, they became her crusade. Already known as a woman of immense intelligence, Emma published articles in the leading journals and newspapers, Jewish and general. She studied Hebrew and Yiddish and steeped herself in Jewish history and culture. When she was asked to write a sonnet to the statue, she refused at first. But when it was suggested that she write about her in the context of her beloved Jewish immigrants, she agreed to try. Three days later, she had finished "The New Colossus."

It was not at all certain that we would read her words. After the poem was written in 1883, it was largely forgotten until Emma's friend, Georgina Schuyler, rescued it from oblivion. She called upon Richard Watson Gilder, Emma's editor and friend, to help her immortalize "The New Colossus" by engraving it upon a bronze plaque to be placed in the pedestal of the Statue. It took two years of red tape, but in the end, because of the persistence of Schuyler and Gilder, the plaque found its place within the pedestal of the statue that Emma's sonnet had redefined. Her vision of this country as a refuge with the capacity for regeneration of the human spirit has endured, notwithstanding sporadic periods of harsh immigration restrictions. Emma, her statue, and her immigrants are indivisible. "The New Colossus" is one of the best known and most often quoted documents in our American experience.

I highlighted that last bit in reference to your allusion to the "Intentions of the U.S government" [sic].

I didn't mean anything derogatory by pointing out this tidbit of historical trivia. Emma Lazarus was an American of Jewish descent, which makes it easy to see why her sympathies were placed where they were.

Right?

 

[Darkwind]

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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus

What does this mean to you?

e pluribus unum

 

[José]

What does this mean to you?

Yes, you got it right...

A nation composed of europeans, founded by europeans, for europeans (with ethnic minorities that never defined the country's national character) whose national identity the traitorous jewish american community has been relentlessly trying to destroy for the last 150 years (from Lazarus to Emmanuel Celler, including the author of this thread).

 

[José]

I urge non-traitorous jews like tank to openly denounce the evil jewish/white liberal agenda of national suicide for the United States.

 

[Unkotare]

A nation composed of europeans [sic], founded by europeans [sic], for europeans [sic]

No, you ignorant shit, no.

 

[Capstone]

...A nation composed of europeans, founded by europeans, for europeans (with ethnic minorities that never defined the country's national character) whose national identity the traitorous jewish american community has been relentlessly trying to destroy for the last 150 years (from Lazarus to Emmanuel Celler, including the author of this thread).

Not to downplay any potential truths in your premise overall, but I wouldn't suggest anything quite so sinister WRT Emma Lazarus's re-interpretation of the direction in which the statue deploys its liberty, drawing inward as opposed to emanating outward as the French intended (And who's to say whether these interpretations are mutually exclusive, anyway?), but I was disappointed to discover the sub-cultural bias at the heart of the poem affixed to the base of one of America's greatest icons.

The poet wrote within her historical context, though, in which her gender alone was an obstacle and sub-cultural biases reigned supreme across the spectrum of ethnic/religious backgrounds. She might have just as well been of Irish/Catholic descent and thereby inspired by the plight of that brand of immigrant.

One of the best things about poetry is that the range of meaning doesn't have to be limited to the authors' intentions. Many modern poets have encouraged a great deal of interpretive leeway based on the readers' capacities and biases.