The Digital Folio

The visitor’s interaction with the storybook explores the story of Lazarus, a 5th- generation New Yorker, and her encounter with a changing city. The book traces Lazarus’s family’s roots to the 1700s showing her ancestors’ work with regard to religious freedom, Lazarus’s education and immersion in literature and languages, the changing city and the issues of immigration, inequality and antisemitism; her Jewish identity, and her activism. The pages and the layers of primary sources demonstrate issues in all their complexity and highlight how Lazarus responded to the debates of her time by writing and engaging in issues.

“Give me your tired” yields over 356 million google hits, showing how politicians and media personalities across the spectrum, as well as both major daily papers in big cities and local small town newspapers draw on Lazarus’s words. This exhibit focuses on how a person—Emma Lazarus—came to shape those words, and how she did so in response to the debates of her time. The book explores the conflicts and ideas that encouraged Lazarus to write, but also shows how the complexities of the debates of the late 19th century might encourage 21^st century visitors to engage in a deeper and more analytical level with contemporary debates. As we highlight the civic education and participation of Emma Lazarus, we in turn hope to inspire the civic education and participation of our visitors in considering their own role in shaping American identity.

Accordingly, the last chapter of the book fades into video of sixth graders who have written their own New Colossus in response to AJHS’s poetry contest. We asked the students: if you could write a poem for the Statue of Liberty, what would it say? A video montage of the students words show us how the written word and our civic responsibility to get engaged, helps link the past to the present and brings Emma Lazarus’s New Colossus to life as an inspiration and catalyst for contemporary debate.