Reclaim our values before the American lamp goes out Michael Lisagor

Emma Lazarus’s 1883 sonnet, "The New Colossus," engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty, implores us to welcome the huddled masses. Unfortunately that lamp has dimmed. And the golden door has shut on the huddled masses. Immigrants who once found refuge are now met with suspicion, oppression and political opportunism. Families fleeing violence are confined in facilities that echo the darkest chapters of history. As someone whose ancestors endured Stalin and Hitler, the parallels are chilling.

But we need to understand that the seeds of this fear-based system have existed since before white settlers spread across the continent. They have been buried beneath our collective consciousness. From the displacement and slaughter of Indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans to the in