Attending to Symbols
in Advocating for Peace and Justice
I struggle to find words to adequately describe the perception and treatment of immigrants in the U.S today. Hateful? Paranoid? Xenophobic? Exploitive? Perhaps “irrational” is the best label.
Immigrants are an invaluable and irreplaceable source of labor for the United States. They are essential for many regional economies, and for the support of the aging segment of American society over the long term. Immigrants bring vitality, creativity, and ingenuity to our communities. And despite common belief, they are less likely to commit crimes than our native born residents.
These are readily supported findings. Yet current political discourse is awash with absurdities like building an immense wall along our national border, deporting over 11-million people and leaving their children behind, and banning Muslims from entering our country. How do such ignorant positions and voices persist?
I think a key part of the answer is the role that symbolism plays in our politics and culture—and how it can be manipulated for gain by small but influential interests and elites.
Consider the greater importance we Americans give to our flag - a symbol of our country - than to our Constitution - the very basis of our country. One can publicly trample the Constitution and go unnoticed, but you dare not tread upon the flag without risking condemnation as being “un-American.”
Recall how a small fascist faction used ancient symbols and a demeaning persona of a Jewish minority in the 1930s to manipulate the broader German society into tolerating hateful aggression and brutality. Think also of the provocative role played by the obelisk, cross, and hammer and sickle in prompting massive human movements in history.
All to say, that folks seeking peace and justice must be careful to attend to symbols in our society to be efficacious. Symbols are powerful and can be coopted, hijacked, and reconstructed to serve unjust ends. The immigrant has become just such a symbol. Let me flesh this out with an examination of a related and iconic American symbol: the Statue of Liberty.
I was a north Jersey kid, so I have a special affinity to the Statue of Liberty. While New York claims territorial jurisdiction over Liberty Island and the statue, they actually sit in New Jersey waters. I assure you that you would swim to the Jersey bank if you were forced off Liberty Island and lacked a boat - unless you would prefer a much longer swim in smelly, murky, tidal water to the New York side.
France gave the Statue of Liberty to the United States in 1886 to commemorate the centennial of American Declaration of Independence. Its designer, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, originally named the statue: “Liberty Enlightening the World.” The date, July 4, 1776, is written on the tablet that Lady Liberty holds in her left hand. As part of that theme, broken shackles of “oppression and tyranny” lie at the feet of the statue.
The statue almost didn’t make it to the United States because of funding issues. Its torch was exhibited at the 1876 world fair in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia to help raise monies for the completion of its construction. Attendees paid to go in and climb up it. The city’s response was so good, that Bartholdi considered changing its designated location from New York to Philadelphia. Imagine the statue standing somewhere in the City of Brotherly Love today! Why it might even compete for tourists with the Rocky statue standing at the foot of the art museum steps, or the statue of Frank Rizzo in front of the Municipal Services Building!
While independence might have been its original signification, that’s not the meaning the Statue of Liberty has held for me. Nor is the meaning it has held for most other Americans who lived all or the larger part of their lives during the twentieth century. The Statue of Liberty took on a radically different popular meaning in the early decades of the century and became a symbol of immigration. This transformation was caused by a short poem written by a young Jewish New Yorker named Emma Lazarus (1849 -1887). Most of us are familiar with at least part of “The New Colossus” which is posted on a plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and goes as follows:
Lazarus wrote this poem in 1883. It was read at the opening of the statue in 1886. The motivation for writing the poem again involved funding issues for the statue - this time they concerned the statue’s pedestal which was constructed in the United States. Lazarus was asked to write a sonnet so it could be auctioned at a fundraiser for the pedestal: the “Art Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty.”
Emma Lazarus was a progressive social activist and critic during the Gilded Age. The inspiration in writing “The New Colossus” was twofold. She had spent time assisting refugees on Ward Island and had been deeply moved by their stories and suffering. But her thinking had also been heavily influenced by Henry George (1839-1897) - a controversial economist.
George was born and raised in Philadelphia. You can read a plaque about him in front of his birthplace at 413 South 10th Street. His most famous work, Progress and Poverty (1879) argued that all land should be treated as a public good (common property), because private ownership of land leads to inequality and an unjust distribution of wealth. These in turn undermine liberty and enslave labor. Emma Lazarus personally knew Henry George and bought his argument.
So The New Colossus, and especially its words, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses” referring to the welcoming of impoverished immigrants - which became intertwined with the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty for so many Americans for so long - advanced a very different meaning of liberty. In fact, “The New Colossus” promulgates a radical position that contemporary “powers that be” in the United States outright condemn.
Lazarus’s poem referring to the Statue of Liberty’s golden torch standing at the gateway of NY is a take on the Colossus of Rhodes – a similarly towering statue with a torch that once stood at the entrance of an ancient harbor on a Greek Island. Lazarus implies that the Statue of Liberty is a revolution of the earlier meaning of liberty signified by the Colossus of Rhodes. Richard Lowrey, in his book, Sabbath and Jubilee (2000), provides a good explanation of the symbolism of the ancient practice of placing torches at the entrances of harbors.
Lowrey notes that the golden torch at the entrance gate is an image from ancient Mesopotamia where conquering kings would “release” conquered cities and regions to gain their loyalty and assimilation. “Announcements of liberty typically were signaled by raising a golden torch at the entrance gate of a released city … The torch announced that this is a duty-free zone, a city or region exempted from taxes, forced labor and military draft, cleared from debt and released from debt slavery.” (p. 75)
Lowrey also suggests that the image of the torch at the gateway was borrowed from Isaiah, Chapters 60 and 61, as “the symbolism of the shining light that announces this new era of liberty.” Isaiah 60:1 announces liberty with the lighting of a torch: “Arise! Shine! For the light has come!” The announcement in Isaiah doesn’t come from a conquering king, however, but instead accompanies the release and liberty of the Jubilee: where equality is promulgated through radical redistribution of wealth and land ownership, and indebted servitude is dismissed.
So here we have the fundamental transformation of the iconic Statute of Liberty from a symbol of liberty gained through violent revolution, to a symbol of liberty gained through equality and fair treatment of the most vulnerable and powerless members of society - landless, impoverished immigrants. And this, largely done through a short sonnet! And for decades and several generations we Americans highly valued and celebrated our immigrants.
But the image of huddled masses could not hold and captivate us forever, because in part other interests learned how to transform the Statue of Liberty. Those interests extracted equality, and fair treatment of the vulnerable and the immigrant from the notion of liberty - and replaced them with power and might.
I believe this second transformation began in earnest with the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. I witnessed it firsthand as a New Jersey State trooper assigned to the security detail at Liberty Park in Jersey City during the July 4th celebration of the refurbished statue in 1986. Two public figures loomed large over the celebration. One was Lee Iacocca - the former CEO of Chrysler and an iconic captain of industry and capitalism, who chaired the statue’s restoration committee. The second was President Ronald Reagan, who more than any other president during peacetime in our history, militarized the American economy and mindset. Above all, Ronald Reagan saw himself as commander in chief.
Consequently, the image of ships carrying the huddled masses into the New York harbor was displaced by the image of the USS Iowa, a heavily armored battleship. It was from the deck of the Iowa - a place of military prowess - that Ronald Reagan gave his speech on July 4th during the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty, with the statue standing in the background. A popular picture of the event that widely made the press had President Reagan standing with his wife Nancy onboard the Iowa under one of its large gun turrets.
Fifteen years later other images of the Statue of Liberty - with smoke pouring from the World Trade Center towers in the background - would galvanize the statue as a symbol of liberty achieved through superior military power. The image of immigrants would also change - from a welcome promise of America’s future, into a threat to America’s future.
Indeed, American society has undergone a major transformation with the help of manipulated symbols and images. As advocates for peace and justice, we need to work to deconstruct those symbols and images, and find ways to better promulgate some more of our own.
Scott Fina
CPF West
