July 22

Read an interview with Ghawas here

Read about the inspiration for Lazarus's poem "The New Colossus" here

The Jewish Lazarus was a prolific writer in multiple genres, a political activist, a translator, and an associate of late-19th-century literati—from Ralph Waldo Emerson to James Russell Lowell. She wrote the sonnet, after some persuasion by friends, for an auction to raise money for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. But the details of the poem’s production and of its author’s biography do not fully capture the conditions under which the poem emerged, conditions that help to explain the poem’s message to its immiserated masses.

“The New Colossus” emerges at a pivotal moment in history. The year before Lazarus’s poem was read at the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition in New York, in 1883, the Chinese Exclusion Act became the first federal law that limited immigration from a particular group. Though set to last for 10 years, various extensions and additions made the law permanent until 1943. The year after Lazarus’s poem was read, the European countries met in Berlin to divide up the African continent into colonies. “The New Colossus” stands at the intersection of U.S. immigration policy and European colonialism, well before the physical Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

Read a list of Albert Brooks's short films here