The historical significance of the Statue of Liberty is much more than a tribute to the religious separatism that drove the early Anglo-Saxon immigrants to our shores in search of freedom.

In fact, the Mayflower Pilgrims disembarked as sick and starving exiles from Britain who survived only with the help of indigenous Americans.

The French sculptor,  Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, would not have been thinking of the “huddled mass” of desperate Pilgrims as he designed his Liberty Enlightening the World several centuries later.  Yet as preparations were made for the soon-to-arrive Statue of Liberty,  a poem was being written which would forever present Lady Liberty as one who welcomed the immigrant to the American shores. 

The Statue of Liberty was finally dedicated in 1886. Yet prior to the voyage of the deconstructed Lady Liberty from France, American poet Emma Lazarus contrasted Lady Liberty to the ancient statue, Colossus of Rhodes.

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.

“The New Colossus” was the first entry read on November 2, 1883 at the opening of an exhibit of art and literary works held to raise money for the pedestal, and remained associated with the exhibit until the pedestal was fully funded in August 1885.  (See The New Colossus in Wikipedia)

In 1903 a plaque bearing the words written in the Statue’s honor was placed on the inner wall of the her pedestal.  Included is the famous second stanza:

“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!”

The New Colossus sonnet currently is displayed in the museum of the Statue of Liberty.

Neither the Statue of Liberty nor our country’s history can be reinterpreted to deny our identity.  WE are immigrants, and the descendants of immigrants.  Sadly, some came as enslaved forced laborers.  Some of us also include the Native Americans in our ancestry. WE are the diverse American family.

We.  The Greater WE.