How Does The New Colossus Reflect The American Dream

A statue constructed in the name of liberty arose from the expansive Atlantic more than a century ago. The values of equality and justice coupled with the promises of freedom remain immoveable like the cooper medium and the stone foundation of which the statue arises. An icon ingrained it the spirit of the United States, the Statue of Liberty is the physical representation of American ideals. It is the “light of liberty” that illuminates the path for the “tired,” and the “poor,” seeking shelter from the shadows of tyranny and persecution. The statue has been symbol of hope in a better future and a new beginning to immigrants seeking a fresh start. Ideals, along with the symbols that represent them, however are merely man made. And like the

Many people have come to America for adventure, opportunity, freedom, and the chance to experience the particular qualities of the American landscape. The American Dream is the idea that every United States citizen, including immigrants and residents, should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. America somewhat provides access to the American dream, it is more so the citizen who provides access to the dream for themselves. Even though they encountered many trials and tribulations, with persistence, people such as Langston Hughes in “I Too Sing America and Anzia Yezierska in “America and I” they were able to achieve their individual American Dream.

The American Dream is the chance for a person of any gender, race, sexual orientation, or or anyone of diversity to have an equal opportunity to change their and become happy and successful in their own eyes. Three books that explain the American Dream are The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou. Each book includes the main character trying to change his or her life by finding what makes them happy. They all leave their hometowns and have a chance to start over.

In a country that is based around the idea that you can be anyone and do anything, one would think that most Americans all want the typical “American Dream.” Many would agree that when we think American Dream, we think fancy yachts, designer clothing, and big buildings, but is that really what the dream is all about? By definition, the American Dream is defined as, “the idea that every U.S. citizen should have equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work and determination” (“American Dream”). It is the idea that someone that comes from the very bottom can make their way to the top through determination and persistence. But what is considered to be “the top” is hard to

“The New Colossus” is a poem written by Emma Lazarus that is inscribed on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. This is the poem that we as Americans use as words of inspiration. From October 28, 1886, the date of when the Statue of Liberty was built and dedicated, to the year 2017, we have used the poem’s words to live by. While some people think that it is time for a change, others say that we should leave the poem to stay, for it is a historical remembrance of everything that we have stood up for. This poem also represents the welcoming of immigrants, the freedom that we fought for, and the freedom of religion.

In the story “The New Colossus” it talks about the Europeans wanting to come to America and pursue the American dream. They had the belief that the Statue of Liberty, in this story she is called The Mother Of Exiles, is asking the countries to “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the United States, she was the golden door to America, offering refugee to those who were seeking freedom.

The women then record these testimonies to their memory, because they have no writing system, and then instruct these lessons to their children (Franklin). Franklin then compares this structure to the House of Commons in England, where people are often yelling and causing disorder. This illustrates how the people that are called “savages” are more civil than the British. This means that the Native Americans are actually noble people and not savage.

The Statue of Liberty embodies American independence and freedom. These principles are the foundation of this nation and give its citizens hope for a progressive and promising future. The immigrants who saw the Statue of Liberty from their ship hoped to live out the “American dream”, which also promised a future full of opportunity. The symbolic torch Lady Liberty holds signifies the light of freedom, however, the broken chain lying around her feet depicts our shameful and repressive past. She stirs the citizens of this nation to be guided by her torch of freedom and warns them never to recede back into subjugation. The American people have the right to pursue the American dream, because of the independence and freedom Lady Liberty personifies. The modern meaning of the American dream produces images of the suburbs, two perfectly behaved children, and a Prius parked in the garage. Unfortunately, this materialistic and shallow dream guides the way Americans live today. In contrast, the American dream, faithful to the principles of our founding documents, ensure equality reaches every suburb, city, countryside, child, man, and woman. America’s standards have lowered and the nation has become too content with their counterfeit American dream. Money can now buy artificial happiness that does not last. However, justice and liberty remain and cost nothing because our predecessors paid for it with their blood and lives. The American dream our forefathers envisioned and Lady Liberty

Ellis Island by Joseph Bruchac and Europe and America by David Ignatow possess similar components regarding the American Dream. For example, both works include dreams, experiences, and disappointments of earlier generations. The poems differ within their similarities though through how the narrator feels towards their ancestors doings. To begin, Ellis Island discusses the dreams of two Slovak children who became the narrator’s grandparents. Lines nine through eleven state, “...tall woman, green / as dreams of forests and meadows / waiting...” The tall woman referred to represents the Statue of Liberty which stood proudly and greeted boats as they sailed to Ellis Island. At first sight, the monument became the “...answerer / of dreams” (16-17), for

If one thing is to be respected and understood about the American Indians, it would be that their history and culture goes much further back than contemporary American history. Consequently, the relationship developed between American Indians and the United States is as unique as it is complicated. This unique relationship started because the American Indians were the first faces seen by fresh colonials from Europe. Despite this fact, the American Indians have faced cultural appropriation on a level that cannot be compared to any other ethnic group or minority. Any American who has been through kindergarten can associate Indians and Pilgrims with Thanksgiving, but how many of those Americans can tell about the Battle of Little Bighorn or the Alcatraz Proclamation? The unique relationship between the United States and American Indians has grown over time to allow for the level of appropriation that can be observed today. It is this unique relationship that has allowed the American Indian culture to be exploited because

The sources used were Dances with Wolves, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (BMHWK), Forget Columbus, The Vanishing American, and Silencing California Genocide in Social Studies Texts(SCGSS). Dancing with Wolves is about an officer is the US Army. He gets stationed on the West front and everyone has abandoned the fort, so he stays there until more soldiers get there. He becomes close with the neighboring Indian tribe and becomes one of them. He starts to live through the struggles that they have to live through being Native Americans. BMHWK is a movie about the white Americans trying to buy land from the Native Americans and trying to civilize them by giving them white names and teaching them white education. Forget Columbus is a chapter within The Inconvenient Indian that talks about the fallacious history regarding Whites vs Indians. He thinks there is a lot of made up history and history not told, for American favor. The

The American Dream is often one of the most well-known benefits of living in America. It is the push factor that has driven millions of foreigners to flock to the so-called land of opportunity. Originally, the American Dream was established by a clause in the Declaration of Independence. It reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration of Independence par. 2). The original American Dream, as laid out by the founding fathers, was freedom from religious persecution and the right to live a happy life. That simple idea has undergone a significant metamorphosis and now the American Dream is much more complex. It has turned into a deep avaricious dream. This transformation has been noted in contemporary literature, especially in the novels Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. These pieces of literature can be read as a larger commentary on the mutation of the American Dream and how it is now more of a negative desire for greed and material. Both Fitzgerald and Alexie surmise that the American Dream has been twisted and corrupted into an uncontrolled desire that has become unattainable for many and that the pursuit of the dream has become dangerous.

Not like the Colussus of Rhodes, the statue of liberty is a welcome to America, rather than conquering limbs astride from land to land. Emma Lazarus The New Colossus 1883

Another difference in the poems is who the authors are describing. “The New Colossus” concentrated more on the immigrants going to America while “Let America Be America Again” gave more consideration to the general population living in America. Lazarus’ poem reached out to the people that wanted a fresh start to their lives. Using the Statue of Liberty as her voice in the poem, she says, “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” She is explaining how she wants all people, rich, poor, black, white, to come to America for a new beginning to their lives. Whereas Hughes is explaining the current state of life among the people who live in America. He feels oppressed by his country to the audience and

Between 1790 and 1920 it was a tough time for the Indians. During that period Native Americans were forced to convert to the European-American Culture. Their whole life changed, the way of living, religion, and especially their children’s future. It was wrong of Americans to convert natives into a different society that they saw fit and not letting them express their own culture and treating them as an unworthy society.