Dear Family and Friends,
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-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
~Emma Lazarus
JULY IV MDCCLXXVI
This is the poem written for the Statue of Liberty.
Most of us know two lines of the sonnet: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses” Very few know that those words come from a longer poem written to honor the statue and earn money for its pedestal.
I had to memorize this poem in school many, many moons ago. I learned it by rote and to be honest, although the imagery was beautiful and something I understood, that is about as far as my understanding went.
It was the same with memorizing the Preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address or Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”.
All of these works are amazing feats of literature and rhetoric. We learned them in school. We learned the words. I’m not sure we truly understoond them, though. We live in a different time. We are colored by our lives, our experiences, our families, our environment.
I had never known what it was to be an exile, a wanderer, an immigrant or a refuge. I have never known war on my soil or my family in mortal danger. I never had to fight and struggle for months giving all that I have physically and mentally to start over in a new home with only hope of a better life to fan the flame of my passions.
In all that I have gone through, I have not truly suffered.
In a world like today it is almost impossible to imagine what our ancestors gave up to give us a better life.
Saying Good Bye
The first movie our family ever watched together on the “big screen” was Fiddler on the Roof. I loved that movie. As a child we had a tape of the soundtrack and I had all the songs learned off by heart.
The story is one of Tradition. It is a story of history and community. It is the story of Tevye… and his daughters.
Despite knowing all the themes running through the storylines and the wide-reaching philosophical and historical gravity to the story that appears to be about a man and his love of God. I have always seen the central story being a “coming of age” story–told from the perspective of the parents.
Most such stories concentrate on the adolescent’s perspective–what they go through; what they suffer; what they achieve.
Fiddler on the Roof concentrates on the parent’s perspective: what they hope for; what they suffer; what they lose.
My favorite person was Hodel. That may have been telling back then had we been able to look into the future. The 2nd daughter leaves home to join the man she loves in the depths of Siberia.
My favorite song was the one she sings her dad at the lonely unmarked train station. Even then I realized that she was saying good bye and yet trying to convey that this good bye was not for lack of love to her parents.
I knew all the words to the song and spent months singing it almost nightly to my parents when I went to bed. (I truly don’t know how they survived that stage of my young life.)
“God alone knows when we shall see each other again.” Hodel says.
“Then,” repies Tevye, “we shall leave it in God’s hands.”
I have never had to say these words to my parents. No matter how hard it has been, nor how many tears have been shed, we have always had each other. Telephone, internet, planes and globalization ensure that we know we will see each other again.
I cannot imagine the difficulty of choosing to leave all that I have to go to a new land with new people, a new language, a new culture having nothing but myself to offer. I cannot imagine saying those words to my own father and mother knowing we will probably never be together again.
A Thought for Today
It is the Fourth of July. I have spent most of them outside of the United States. Still, I like to reflect on the land I grew up in and the country I call home.
The Unites States of America has so much to offer the world today. A land of exiles and wanderers. A land of pioneers and fighters.
The land of the hopeful; the dreamers; the fearful and afraid.
I am the daughter of a daughter of an immigrant.
I am a wanderer in body, a dreamer in soul and a fighter in Faith.
I am an American.
Today, somewhere between the celebrations, the fireworks and family, take a minute to reflect on who you are.
,We celebrate our country. Our country is us its people!
Let Your Light Shine.
