The Shadow on the Tribute to Emma Lazarus: 2004 RNC Protests
Shadow on the Tribute to Emma Lazarus
During our stay in New York City during the 2004 RNC protests, we were unable to visit the Statue of Liberty. It seemed, since we were fighting for freedom and liberty, like a great way to spend our free time in New York. We instead went to Battery Park where we could view the Statue of Liberty across the New York Harbor. In the park was a memorial in tribute to Emma Lazarus bearing the same sonnet inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. The memorial was surrounded by three metal police bars, which cast a shadow of bars across the tribute. It seemed symbolic of the state of freedom in New York at the time.
The shadow of imprisonment
(crisscrossing metal bars)
stretches across the words of a poet
no longer is this land for the tired,
the poor, the huddled masses
now sweating in the streets
just for the right to survive!
the right to freedom!
they are made like exiles
these masses yearning to breathe free
to live in the land their ancestors
fought to be free in
the land where their brothers,
sisters, mothers, and fathers
were sent off to war
while we were told it was to protect our freedom
yet, if Emma Lazarus were here
she would rip down those bars
around your memorial
she'd cry at the feet of Liberty
and scrawl her sonnet
on every street corner
and every wall
until the sound of Liberty
and freedom rang from
every corner and every rooftop
and the voices in the streets
marched through the city
without being silenced
without being forgotten
and repressed, and suppressed
these are the voices of the tired!
the words of the poor!
We are the huddled masses!
Robin Coe is a journalist and author. She wrote the fantasy novel "Fly on the Wall" and graphic novel "Illustrated Book of Wrath".
