I don't know the answer to the immigration problem. Yes, I know what illegal means, and I understand that we can't let anyone who wants cross our borders undetected. On the other hand, I have a sneaking admiration for people who are willing to risk everything for a chance at a better life. Making them all felons seems kind of mean-spirited to me.
My mother was an immigrant, as were my father's parents, which may be why this poem has always appealed to me:
He said--
Folding Chairs
How sad these changes are.
People unscrew the name plates from the doors,
take the saucepan of cabbage
and heat it up again, in a different place.
What sort of furniture is this
that advertises departure?
People take up their folding chairs
and emigrate.
Ships laden with homesickness and the urge to vomit
carry patented seating contraptions
and unpatented owners
to and fro.
Now on both sides of the great ocean
there are folding chairs;
How sad these changes are.
Gunter Grass
translated by Michail Hamburger
This poem contains the lines that are engraved on the Statue of Liberty:
She said--
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!”
Emma Lazarus
