and he helped people who would never be among his state's constituents.
Why? Because he is a thoroughly decent human being, who his entire life has taken to heart those words we all learned as children, about what America meant:
"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!"
Paul Auster wrote that the Statue of Liberty was originally intended as a monument to the principles of international republicanism, but Emma Lazurus' poem, 'The New Colossus' reinvented the statue's purpose, turning Liberty into a welcoming mother, a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world."[8]
John T. Cunningham wrote that "The Statue of Liberty was not conceived and sculpted as a symbol of immigration, but it quickly became so as immigrant ships passed under the torch and the shining face, heading toward Ellis Island. However, it was [Lazarus's poem] that permanently stamped on Miss Liberty the role of unofficial greeter of incoming immigrants."[9]
The poem has entered the political realm. It was quoted in John F. Kennedy's book A Nation of Immigrants (1958)[10] as well as a 2010 political speech by President Obama advocating immigration policy reform.[11]
Parts of the poem also appear in popular culture. The Broadway musical Miss Liberty, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, an immigrant himself, used final stanza beginning "Give me your tired, your poor" as the basis for a song.[12][13] It was also read in the 1941 film Hold Back the Dawn as well as being recited by the heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's wartime film Saboteur.[13]
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