Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Huddled Masses Yearning to Be Free”: How Dare the Sun Rise, American Ideals, and The Refugee Crisis Today

In this activity, students will analyze the iconic American poem—“The New Colossus”—in light of Sandra’s experience and discuss as a class whether the US is honoring its core values around immigrants, refugees, and the displaced.

The 1903 poem “The New Colossus” by poet Emma Lazarus is perhaps most famous for being inscribed on a bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The poem is as follows:

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!’