Suro in Washington Post: "She was never about those huddled masses" Posted July 6, 2009

The Washington Post ran a widely carried July 5 op-ed by journalism professor Roberto Suro about the Statue of Liberty. Suro suggested that the Emma Lazarus poem on the statue — which includes the line “Give me your tired, your poor” — be removed.

"Inscribed on a small brass plaque mounted inside the statue's stone base, the poem is an appendix, added belatedly, and it can safely be removed, shrouded or at least marked with a big asterisk,” Suro wrote. "We live in a different era of immigration, and the schmaltzy sonnet offers a dangerously distorted picture of the relationship between newcomers and their new land."

He offered up an alternative message.

"The most enduring meaning conveyed by Lady Liberty has nothing do with immigration, and I say let's go back to that," he wrote. "The statue's original name is 'Liberty Enlightening the World,' and the tablet the lady holds in her left hand reads 'July IV, MDCCLXXVI' to commemorate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Lady Liberty celebrates U.S. political values as a force for the betterment of humanity, as well as the bond of friendship among freedom-loving nations. That's a powerful and worthy message.

Suro also participated in a July 6 online forum by The Washington Post.

Suro is a veteran print journalist with extensive experience in foreign, domestic and Washington coverage as a senior staffer for The New York Times and The Washington Post. Prior to joining the School of Journalism faculty in August 2007, he was director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington D.C. that he founded in 2001 as a project of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

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