Does the poem “The New Colossus” ring a bell?  It’s more commonly known as the poem on the Statue of Liberty. Here is a snippet:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”

 It’s a lovely poem.  But I’m not really crazy about it.  Especially the part about “huddled masses” and “wretched refuse”.  I realize that there were boatloads of poor, illiterate immigrants arriving daily in New York Harbor.  But “wretched refuse”?  That sounds rather harsh.  Emma Lazarus makes it sound like America was some sort of human garbage dump.  Why didn’t she just write, “Send us your felons and misfits, the dregs of  society”?

Emma had it completely wrong.  Imagine this: you live in a country where things are not going well.  You are poor, probably almost destitute.  But you look at your children or look in the mirror and want something more.  You know that there must be a better place, a better way.  You love your home country, but the promise of a greater life beckons.  No matter how foreign and strange it sounds, you decide to go to America. So you save up whatever money you can, doing any sort of labor.  You try not to think about the family that you most likely will never see again.  Say goodbye to friends, relatives and the place you and your ancestors have probably always lived.  You say goodbye to your entire history.  Leaving is not for the faint of heart.

When your ship finally arrives in New York after a long, difficult journey, do you huddle on the deck, terrified and overwhelmed?  No, you leap to the side of the boat, your heart brimming with thanks and anticipation.  What will your new life be like?  What will your future bring? 

America is a land of immigrants.  At some point every single family came from some place else.  Do you know which ones came here?  The brave ones who were not afraid to go someplace unknown.  The courageous ones who were willing to work hard to pay the terrifying price of immigration. The selfless ones who did whatever it took to gain a more abundant life for their children.  These were not masses huddling, waiting for something good to happen to them; these were the optimists who faced their worries and took action.

I think of the immigrants in my family. The earliest came across on the Mayflower.  I can’t fathom for one second what faith and fortitude these people must have posessed to travel to a land that was not much more than a rumor.  Only the Spirit of God and great hopes for their children’s lives could have strengthened them during the brutal years of the early English colonies.

Then there is my most recent family immigrant: my grandmother Hildegard who arrived in America shortly before WWII.  She found Hitler and the Nazis appaling, and worked after high school dismissal each day to earn enough money to emigrate.  She knew only one person in our whole entire country: the man who baptized her into the LDS church.  Despite having never left Austria previously, she resolutely followed her heart and made a new life here in the U.S.  I think of all the bigotry and predjudice she must have faced as an Austrian during the war.  But she was strong and unwavering, and I am forever grateful for her example and sacrifice.

On this Independence Day, I think of the Statue of Liberty, brazenly welcoming people, still, to this country. Immigrants, past and future, may certainly be tired and poor.  But our country has the blessing of being infused with the blood of the courageous, the hopeful, and the undaunted.