Tag: Immigrants

I try to say “Happy Fourth!”

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments 
and it sticks in my throat like a primal 
blockage that wants to give
way but can’t. 

The people of this beautiful land are
loving and generous and kind, for
the most part, but also angry and 
hateful, exclusionary, and possessive 
of the wealth of freedom they think 
they have. 

They came as immigrants, then 
ignored those already
here, like this sentence does. 
They came as immigrants, then
opposed those who would follow,
closing doors once held open for the 
yearning masses.

Not all, of course, and celebrations
demand a focus on the praiseworthy —
the stands taken for democracy, the
opportunities offered to outgrow our
selves, the social safety net we 
knit from strands of compassion and
a deep-seated aversion to sullying 
our beautiful lives with visions of 
poverty. 

She gives with one hand and takes 
away with the other, my motherland.
She preaches a hoarded freedom,
this limited paradise of promise.  
She offers crumbs from the table
as if that should ease our craving.

But I am she.  And you. And you. And
The immigrant. And the Cherokee. And
the Irish seeking relief from impoverished 
hunger. And the African seeking the
freedom stolen from them. 
And the Jew seeking life un-threatened. 
And the Palestinian seeking life un-threatened. 
And the Sudanese seeking
peace. And the Hindu and the 
Muslim and the Chinese and the
Ukrainian and the Serb and the 
Mexican and the fullness of the
human experience on this planet
that is home to us all.  

Mine is the patriotism of humanity, 
fueled by a democratic compassion,
honoring the republic that makes
us one. Let freedom ring.


No Word For Wall

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

The Tohono O’odham people have no word for “wall.”

Native lands in geopolitical purgatory,

Half Arizonan, half Sonoran.

A nation with no sovereignty.

The Mohawk live with one foot in Canada

And one in the United States

(note oxymoron to use later as classroom example).

The Seto people are Estonian,

Or Russian,

Or Estonian –

Depending on street address

Or school district

Or maybe just accident of birth.

Africa and the Middle East –

Ancient tribes, too many to count it seems,

Sliced and diced and filleted

Into starter kit nations –

Just add war.

How far back does it go?

Did the ancient Judeans or Eqyptians or Sumerians

Conquer and divide

In this same way?

Is it just the way humans are?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

The Tohono O’odham people have no word for “wall.”

A Mighty Woman With A Torch

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

“The New Colossus” was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 as a fundraiser to pay for the base of the Statue of Liberty.  It was engraved on a plaque and mounted inside the lower level in 1903.  One line of the poem is readily recalled by most Americans:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

But the entire poem is a mission statement, a declaration of purpose for our nation.  It begins:

“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.”

The first line refers to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.  According to myth, it was a statue of a conquering warrior straddling the harbor which arriving ships had to pass under.  Just think Ancient Greek manspreading.

Lazarus contrasts this to the woman with the torch, this “mother of exiles,” who is putting out the welcome mat.  Re-reading these particular lines just a week after the Women’s March on Washington was especially poignant for me.

The poem continues:

” . . .  From her beacon hand

Glows worldwide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.”

Lazarus emphasizes the gentleness of the woman, the maternal nurturing waiting on the shores of this great democracy.  Her eyes are “mild,” yet they “command,” a paradoxical pair of characteristics evoking the quiet certainty of the divine feminine.

Then Lazarus hits the homerun:

“‘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!”

Lazarus doesn’t just give us the message of the statue; she puts the words directly in the mouth of Lady Liberty.  The first-person declaration makes it even stronger, even more personal.  She tells whomever will listen that conquering heros can continue to re-tell their stories of past glories. She lives in the present, a present where people continue to strive to rise above the fate handed to them by those same conquering heros, nations too busy bragging of their greatness to care for the least of these.

She doesn’t ask for the best and the brightest.  She doesn’t apply a litmus test of intelligence or wealth or strength.  She asks for the marginalized and the hurting.  She asks for the reject and the refugee.  She asks for the victims.

We may not know the entire poem by heart, but we can still fulfill the mission.  Besides, we’re more and more aware all the time of how unwise it is to piss off a mighty woman.