POET UNITED STATESUntil we are all free, we are none of us free.
—EMMA LAZARUS
Fourteen-year-old Emma sat alone in her room. She was bored with her music and language studies and thought she’d try something new. She dipped her pen in ink and began to capture on paper the words that floated in her mind. The more she wrote, the more difficult it got. She had no practice with meter or rhyme, and the whole endeavor was a struggle. After hours of work and many sheets of crumpled paper, Emma was ready to give up on writing poetry. But something inside her told her to keep trying. Something wanted her to put those beautiful words on paper, so she kept going. Years later her hard work would pay off.
On July 22, 1849, Emma Lazarus was born into a Jewish family in New York City. From an early age, Emma was interested in reading and writing. In addition to common school subjects, private tutors taught her music; European literature; American poetry; and foreign languages like German, French, and Italian. Emma began writing her own poetry when she was about fourteen years old.
Emma didn’t just write about the social causes she believed in—she took action. She visited the main immigration camps and helped new Jewish immigrants adapt to life in New York. She also helped found the Hebrew Technical Institute, providing much-needed education for the new immigrants.
Her talent with words was so great that her first volume of poetry was published when she was just seventeen years old. She went on to write a novel, a play, and many more poems and magazine essays. She soon became a well-known, respected American author.
Emma was inspired by nature, music, and art, but she was especially moved by social issues. In the 1880s, Jews in Eastern Europe were facing horrible discrimination and persecution. As thousands of Jews immigrated to New York in order to escape, Emma became aware of their struggles, and she began writing poems that dealt with Jewish persecution through history. She also wrote a play about medieval persecution of Jews, and she translated medieval Jewish poems. She collected these poems and the play into Songs of a Semite, which was published in 1882.
After her death, Emma received a great honor when her poem “The New Colossus” was engraved on the podium of the Statue of Liberty. Her words would now welcome all immigrants who sailed to the United States in hope of a safe haven from persecution. Today, her poetry still greets immigrants, even if they arrive in New York by airplane instead of ship. The last few lines of Emma’s poem are now inscribed on the wall of the reception hall in the John F. Kennedy International Airport.
THE NEW COLOSSUS
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!”11