This essay examines the paradox at the heart of American identity: the nation simultaneously symbolizes freedom and opportunity — as celebrated in Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus" and Walt Whitman's poetry — while systematically denying those ideals to African Americans and Native Americans. Drawing on literary texts, historical scholarship, and legal precedents such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, the paper traces how some immigrant groups eventually "became white" and accessed the American Dream, while others remained excluded through law, violence, and forced assimilation. The destruction of Native American culture through Indian boarding schools and the political disenfranchisement of African Americans are examined as particularly stark illustrations of the gap between American rhetoric and American reality.
The paper exemplifies comparative textual and historical analysis: it reads literary works not as isolated aesthetic objects but as evidence of broader ideological claims about national identity. By placing Lazarus's optimistic vision alongside Aldrich's warning and Smith's political critique, the student shows how multiple texts can be triangulated to illuminate a central thesis.
The essay begins by establishing the ideal of American freedom through canonical literary texts, then introduces historical complexity by noting both the scale of European immigration and its limitations. It proceeds through two extended case studies — African American political disenfranchisement and Native American forced assimilation — before concluding with a synthesis that returns to the opening paradox. The structure moves from ideal to reality to consequence, making the argument easy to follow.
America is a nation of paradoxes. On one hand, it is a nation that has symbolized freedom to many immigrants, as poignantly illustrated in Emma Lazarus's poem The New Colossus — a poem inscribed on the famed Statue of Liberty that greeted so many refugees as they strove to escape Europe and avoid intolerable conditions. The Lazarus poem proclaims the dawning of a new America, free of class restrictions, capable of offering prosperity even to the poorest new arrival. Yet federal policies toward African Americans and Native Americans have been marked by injustice and prejudice. The American Dream of egalitarianism exists alongside an ugly strain of racism that has run through the thread of American history since its inception.
Emma Lazarus's poem is perhaps the most explicit and famous rendition of the American Dream: "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp… / Give me your tired, your poor, / your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" (9–11). The poem creates a clear contrast between the oppression of Europe, despite its supposedly superior culture, and the promise of America. The statue is called the "Mother of Exiles," offering "world-wide welcome" to all. This is the American ideal — the America of popular myth.
During the early 19th century, America did indeed seem to embody some aspects of the Lazarus poem in reality. The country became considerably more diverse in terms of its ethnic composition. "The most visible manifestation of diversity in 1900 was the multitude of nationalities, languages, and cultures within the white population… more than one-third of the U.S. population was composed of immigrants from Europe and their children. About half the immigrants in 1900 were considered to be 'old immigrants,' meaning that they came from the traditional sending countries of Great Britain and northwestern Europe. The rest, including Italians, Slavs, Greeks, Poles, East European Jews, and many other groups from southern and eastern Europe, were labeled 'new immigrants'" (Hirschman 595). In fact, a greater proportion of the U.S. population was made up of immigrants in the 19th century than in the 21st. "Only 54% of the population in 1900 was native-born white of native parentage, compared with 62% in 2000" (Hirschman 595). However, these immigrants often faced considerable prejudice, and the "new immigrants" were frequently considered nonwhite — including the Irish and Italians — and treated accordingly.
Yet in the poetic rhetoric of the age, this diversity was often celebrated despite the difficulties faced by newcomers. The ideal of American democracy is similarly embodied in Walt Whitman's vision of New York City in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Whitman paints a picture of the ferry as something all human beings in New York can enjoy and benefit from equally: when he uses it, he participates in a larger conversation with American democracy, a conversation that will continue even after he is gone.
"Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide" (17–19).
However, this sunny and uncomplicated vision of America was not enjoyed by all. In the essay "Will Smith's Defense of His Race," the writer notes that "to the Negro alone, politics will bear no fruit" (Smith 749). While Irish immigrants had been able to mobilize and generate common political support, African Americans were denied their voting rights through spurious claims of miscegenation and allegations of rape. The Irish, once despised, came to dominate politics in the North, while African Americans remained segregated and denied parity with whites. Historians have since argued that "the Irish 'became white' by distinguishing themselves from those who were not [white]. As longshoremen and steelworkers, they cemented their white status by excluding Black and new immigrants from skilled occupations or positions in management" (Nelson & Srigley 334).
It was commonly argued that "a Negro educated is a Negro spoiled" and that education was "wasted" upon Black Americans. Smith counters pointedly: "Of what use has education been to you in the upbuilding of the political and social structure which you designate the United States of America?" (Smith 750). Smith implies that a good education is worth a very great deal, underlining the role education plays in social mobility. He stresses that racism is the root of any alleged crimes committed by African Americans against whites, highlighting both the inequality of social conditions between the races and the reality that the South, in particular, was no place where African Americans could "breathe free" in the manner promised by the Lazarus poem.
The legal record reinforces this point. As noted by Walter Echo-Hawk in "Justice, Injustice, and the Dark Side of American Indian Law," while the courts struck down segregation against African Americans in Brown v. Board of Education and even permitted the Amish religious minority to suspend formal education at eighth grade — ruling that protecting religious freedom outweighed compulsory high school attendance — Native Americans received no similarly liberal legal protections (Echo-Hawk 30–31). Furthermore, even the eventual granting of educational parity to African Americans came only after years of using the law to deny their rights, as seen in Plessy v. Ferguson and the Dred Scott decision. No matter how great the proclamations of American freedom, the enforcement of that freedom has often been sorely wanting.
This irony is captured in "Unguarded Gates" by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who opens with:
WIDE open and unguarded stand our gates,
Named of the four winds, North, South, East, and West;
Portals that lead to an enchanted land (1–3)
Yet that enchanted land is not equally enchanted for all. "But if a slave's foot press it sets him free. / Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage," notes Aldrich. He ends the poem with an ominous warning about what hatred and the denial of justice can ultimately produce:
Have a care
Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn
And trampled in the dust. For so of old
The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome,
And where the temples of the Caesars stood
The lean wolf unmolested made her lair (37–41)
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey. "Unguarded Gates." 1895. Print.
Hawk, Walter Echo. In the Courts of the Conqueror. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 2010.
Hirschman, Charles. "Immigration and the American Century." Demography (pre-2011) 42.4 (2005): 595–620. ABI/Inform Complete. Web. 19 Sep. 2014.
Hopkins, Pauline Elizabeth. "Chapter XV. Will Smith's Defense of His Race." Contending Forces. Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Ed. Nina Baym. Vol. C. New York: Norton, 2007. 748–52. Print.
Lazarus, Emma. "The New Colossus." Web.
Nelson, Bruce, and Katrina Srigley. "Divided We Stand: American Workers and the Struggle for Black Equality." Labour 50 (2002): 334–6. ProQuest. Web. 19 Sep. 2014.
Vanderpool, Tim. "Lesson No. 1: Shed Your Indian Identity." The Christian Science Monitor: 14. Apr 02, 2002. ABI/Inform Complete. Web. 19 Sep. 2014.
Whitman, Walt. "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Web.
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