Emma Lazarus’s verses, filled with hope and mercy, are engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York. The poet wrote when the “land of the free” was the dream of many enslaved European peasants. Not coincidentally, the monument represents a woman pleading for peace and welcome. She is desperately different from the image of grandeur of past empires and horse-riding, sword-drawing emperors. Even the words evoke the gender of the new nation: Not a bronze giant, but a powerful, openhearted mother. The woman who saluted everyone with hope showed the enthusiasm of a youth: “Keep, ancient […]