IN WHICH: The Statue of Liberty Weeps
I've had the incredible blessing today to be able to hold my own newborn daughter - just a little over 48 hours since
watching her burst forth into this world. She is beautiful and it's amazing this feeling of falling in love with a whole new human being, a young and somewhat alien child that I still can't believe is ours, who has blonde hair in a family of people with primarily dark hair, and yet is still most definitely ours.
And yet, even as I hold this child and marvel at her mystery, I can't help but reflect at the same time on the literally thousands of children who are currently being detained right now in various refugee centers throughout our country. Children who have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles, being given up by their parents and smuggled into America illegally so that they can escape their home countries, torn apart by war, by abuse, by child sex trafficking and, as hard to believe as it is... things even worse than that. I think about the fact that these children are lost in a place that is alien to them, surrounded by people who are less than friendly to them, caught in the lenses of news cameras and herded from place to place as they wait to find out whether someone will be kind enough to stand up for them, to request asylum for them, to show them that someone cares about them. Meanwhile, crowds of people are crying out for the children to be deported, to be sent back where they came from... articles like this one which suggest that it would be "cheaper to fly them all back home" than to let the immigration/justice system do its job, and with comment sections that are filled with venomous, hateful remarks suggesting we should seal our borders from illegal alien invasions.
In 1883, the American poet Emma Lazarus wrote a poem, called "The New Colossus," which would end up being emblazoned on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. In case it's been a long time since you read it in elementary school as I did, here is the full text:
When that poem was written, America was a place where people knew they could turn and come to for refuge. Every bit of history we were taught as children in school was about the spirit that shaped America into what it was - the "land of the free and the home of the brave." We heard about the intrepid Puritans who fled to America to escape religious persecution from the English, who eked out their own existence despite everything being against them. We heard about the colonists who, rather than continue to live under the regime of English rule, declared their own independence to form "a more perfect union" dedicated to the pursuit of certain goals and the defense of certain rights that our founding fathers deemed inalienable. We heard about people throughout the rest of our country's history who came to this land in the hopes of living into the promises and opportunities laid out by those earliest men and women: they hoped to find life, to find liberty, to pursue happiness in a place that would allow them to do so, that would accept them and let them thrive.
And so men and women, entire families, came to America from Ireland, from Scotland, from Germany, Italy, Russia... from Vietnam, Japan, China, and Korea... Christians, Jewish people, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, Buddhists.... each of them came into this land and made it what it is. They still do make it what it is. We just celebrated Independence Day only a week ago, the day we declared our own sovereignty as a nation... and we celebrated it by eating German hot dogs and hamburgers, drinking alcoholic beverages whose origins date back at least to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, listening to/watching baseball, whose origins go back to England despite its claim as the first "American" sport, eating English/Dutch Apple Pie, and setting off Chinese fireworks (meanwhile waving American flags, many of which bear a print somewhere on the staff that says "Made in *somewhere other than USA*").
And yet just a week after we celebrated the beginnings of a nation whose history beams with stories of people who came here from all over the world, a nation that metaphorically describes itself as a melting pot... we find ourselves turning on the news, reading the headlines in the paper, and listening to the debate going back and forth right now over what is estimated to be likely over 60,000 immigrant children, sent here unaccompanied by their parents as refugees fleeing from unspeakable acts of violence and war in places like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. We find ourselves watching protesters standing in front of buses full of these undocumented, unaccompanied children, waving American flags and trying to block them from coming into our country:
One of the men above in this clip (he's the bearded man in the thumbnail, actually) is shown wearing a bandana or other head-covering that bears the Israeli flag. He calls the turning away of these buses "A victory for the American people." And yet, I wonder what that Israeli flag on top of his head means for him, or the name of God written in Hebrew on his forehead... does he remember the word of God given to the Israelites through Moses and through the prophets? Is he familiar with just how much the Hebrew Bible teaches about how Israel was to treat the alien, the widow, and the orphan in its land?
"You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9)
"The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:34)
“Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.” All the people shall say, “Amen!” (Deuteronomy 27:19)
"Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place." (Jeremiah 22:3)
This is no victory for the American people. This is a failure in basic human decency and dignity. This is an inability to recognize human beings as just that: human beings. As people in need of help, as people who are turning to a country that was founded on the idea that a person should have a place where they could escape oppression and violence in order that they might begin life anew.
And I wonder: what if this were my child? What if things in America were so bad that I would rather risk my daughter or my son being sold into slavery, being abused in horrible ways, having to cross hundreds of miles of desert, risking their own lives... because that was better than the alternative of keeping them in a country where worse things would happen if they stayed. And what if I learned that the country which I had thought was supposed to be a safe haven for people like that... what if that country told my child that s/he wasn't allowed to have the same safety given to him/her that every single other person ever to become a citizen of that country was offered at some point in their family's history?
The plaque on the Statue of Liberty says "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Our government is sitting on their hands while too many people in this country are saying "send them home - we don't want them."
And yet, even as I hold this child and marvel at her mystery, I can't help but reflect at the same time on the literally thousands of children who are currently being detained right now in various refugee centers throughout our country. Children who have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles, being given up by their parents and smuggled into America illegally so that they can escape their home countries, torn apart by war, by abuse, by child sex trafficking and, as hard to believe as it is... things even worse than that. I think about the fact that these children are lost in a place that is alien to them, surrounded by people who are less than friendly to them, caught in the lenses of news cameras and herded from place to place as they wait to find out whether someone will be kind enough to stand up for them, to request asylum for them, to show them that someone cares about them. Meanwhile, crowds of people are crying out for the children to be deported, to be sent back where they came from... articles like this one which suggest that it would be "cheaper to fly them all back home" than to let the immigration/justice system do its job, and with comment sections that are filled with venomous, hateful remarks suggesting we should seal our borders from illegal alien invasions.
In 1883, the American poet Emma Lazarus wrote a poem, called "The New Colossus," which would end up being emblazoned on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. In case it's been a long time since you read it in elementary school as I did, here is the full text:
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!"
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!"
When that poem was written, America was a place where people knew they could turn and come to for refuge. Every bit of history we were taught as children in school was about the spirit that shaped America into what it was - the "land of the free and the home of the brave." We heard about the intrepid Puritans who fled to America to escape religious persecution from the English, who eked out their own existence despite everything being against them. We heard about the colonists who, rather than continue to live under the regime of English rule, declared their own independence to form "a more perfect union" dedicated to the pursuit of certain goals and the defense of certain rights that our founding fathers deemed inalienable. We heard about people throughout the rest of our country's history who came to this land in the hopes of living into the promises and opportunities laid out by those earliest men and women: they hoped to find life, to find liberty, to pursue happiness in a place that would allow them to do so, that would accept them and let them thrive.
And so men and women, entire families, came to America from Ireland, from Scotland, from Germany, Italy, Russia... from Vietnam, Japan, China, and Korea... Christians, Jewish people, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, Buddhists.... each of them came into this land and made it what it is. They still do make it what it is. We just celebrated Independence Day only a week ago, the day we declared our own sovereignty as a nation... and we celebrated it by eating German hot dogs and hamburgers, drinking alcoholic beverages whose origins date back at least to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, listening to/watching baseball, whose origins go back to England despite its claim as the first "American" sport, eating English/Dutch Apple Pie, and setting off Chinese fireworks (meanwhile waving American flags, many of which bear a print somewhere on the staff that says "Made in *somewhere other than USA*").
And yet just a week after we celebrated the beginnings of a nation whose history beams with stories of people who came here from all over the world, a nation that metaphorically describes itself as a melting pot... we find ourselves turning on the news, reading the headlines in the paper, and listening to the debate going back and forth right now over what is estimated to be likely over 60,000 immigrant children, sent here unaccompanied by their parents as refugees fleeing from unspeakable acts of violence and war in places like El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. We find ourselves watching protesters standing in front of buses full of these undocumented, unaccompanied children, waving American flags and trying to block them from coming into our country:
One of the men above in this clip (he's the bearded man in the thumbnail, actually) is shown wearing a bandana or other head-covering that bears the Israeli flag. He calls the turning away of these buses "A victory for the American people." And yet, I wonder what that Israeli flag on top of his head means for him, or the name of God written in Hebrew on his forehead... does he remember the word of God given to the Israelites through Moses and through the prophets? Is he familiar with just how much the Hebrew Bible teaches about how Israel was to treat the alien, the widow, and the orphan in its land?
"You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23:9)
"The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:34)
“Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.” All the people shall say, “Amen!” (Deuteronomy 27:19)
"Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place." (Jeremiah 22:3)
This is no victory for the American people. This is a failure in basic human decency and dignity. This is an inability to recognize human beings as just that: human beings. As people in need of help, as people who are turning to a country that was founded on the idea that a person should have a place where they could escape oppression and violence in order that they might begin life anew.
And I wonder: what if this were my child? What if things in America were so bad that I would rather risk my daughter or my son being sold into slavery, being abused in horrible ways, having to cross hundreds of miles of desert, risking their own lives... because that was better than the alternative of keeping them in a country where worse things would happen if they stayed. And what if I learned that the country which I had thought was supposed to be a safe haven for people like that... what if that country told my child that s/he wasn't allowed to have the same safety given to him/her that every single other person ever to become a citizen of that country was offered at some point in their family's history?
The plaque on the Statue of Liberty says "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Our government is sitting on their hands while too many people in this country are saying "send them home - we don't want them."
Jesus said: "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” (Matthew 19:14)
Here are ways we can help: http://www.pcusa.org/news/2014/7/7/response-unaccompanied-children/#Help
Comments
Post a Comment