The New Colossus
The New Colossus is a 1883 poem by the Jewess Emma Lazarus. The poem was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the lower level of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. It includes the famous phrases "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".
The emotional poem is often used to promote mass immigration.
Emma Lazarus was also an important forerunner of the Zionist movement and argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland. Presumably, she would not have promoted mass immigration of non-Jews to this Jewish homeland, in order to keep it Jewish.
See also
- E pluribus unum
- Jews and immigration
- Joseph Pulitzer - Influential Jewish newspaper publisher who promoted the poem.
- Melting pot
