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Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor

“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!”

- Emma Lazarus, author of “The New Colossus”, was born today in 1849. Lazarus, a Jewish American poet from New York City, wrote the sonnet for an auction that raised funds to build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. Her words were ultimately chosen for inscription on a bronze plaque at the base of the statue and forever represent the ideal of the “American dream” for those coming to the United States for the first time.

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