Filed Under: [ Hispanic News ] [ Immigration ] [ Tomás' Picks ]
Knowledge is Power!
“This month marks the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty in New York’s Harbor, an event that will go unheralded in large part because the monument is taken for granted today. But it wasn’t always that way. When the statue, officially called Liberty Enlightening the World, was dedicated on a raw, rainy late October day in 1886, it brought to New York the president of the United States, Grover Cleveland, who formally accepted the belated Bicentennial gift from France, the nation’s closest ally during the American Revolution.
“We will not forget,” he said, “that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected.”
Ironically, none of the speeches on that historic day interpreted the gift in reference to immigration, but because of its proximity to Ellis Island, where some 12 million arriving immigrants were processed from 1892 to 1954, the monument became the gold standard for open-door policies.”*
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