• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    9 hours ago

    Depends on what you think it represents.

    It’s traditionally a symbol of opportunity, or new start style liberty.

    America has, for a long time, been a place of hope or opportunity for immigrants. Not necessarily welcome, kindness, or prosperity, but hope.

    With the visibly growing xenophobia this has tragically waned, but even still we have some of the highest immigration rates in the world.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      8 hours ago

      The poem at the base of the statue, The New Colossus, makes its meaning pretty clear.

      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!”

      The US never lived up to the promise the statue made.