Today the words themselves may be remembered a great degree more than the poet herself, but in Lazarus' time just the opposite was true. Inscription: A TRIBUTE TO / EMMA LAZARUS / POET-PATRIOT /-/ AUTHOR OF THE NEW COLOSSUS / THE SONNET.1945, the engraved poem was relocated-including all fourteen lines- to be placed over the Statue of Liberty's main entrance. Here is Cuccinelli in an interview yesterday on NPR's Morning Edition.Donor: Federation of Jewish Womens Organizations, Inc. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli has offered his own version of the famous Emma Lazarus poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty poem is actually a sonnet by Lazarus written to raise money for the building of the base and is now engraved on a bronze plaque and contained inside of the Statue of Liberty.In defense of that new public charge rule, Acting U.S. The Statue of Liberty poem as it is known, was written by Emma Lazarus and is named 'The New Colossus'.

Cuccinelli there saying that this poem was referring to people coming from Europe. But she writes this poem about all immigrants.KELLY: About all immigrants, which is interesting because we heard Mr. It's interesting because she herself was helping East European Jewish immigrants.

She didn't say a mother of Catholic exiles. She didn't say a mother of European exiles. In the beginning of the poem, she refers to the statue, and she refers to America as a mother of exiles. That's not my interpretation.

Her organization is leading a three-year initiative called the Emma Lazarus Project.(SOUNDBITE OF THE ALCHEMIST, WOODY JACKSON, ET. We ask students after teaching them about Emma and her times if you could write a poem for the Statue of Liberty, what would you write? And from what I've seen of the poems the students have written, I think Emma would take great joy from the way in which students of diverse backgrounds have embraced her poem and used it as an opportunity to put their voice into the ongoing conversation of what it means to be an American.KELLY: That's Annie Polland of the American Jewish Historical Society. What I do think she would love are the poems we encourage students to write through our program. And what she's striving for is an expansive and inclusive idea of immigrants and the way in which America itself would define itself by providing that safety and that opportunity for immigrants.KELLY: So based on your research and what you have been able to learn about her, what do you think she would have made of this poem being reinterpreted, being debated, informing the national conversation about immigration today all these many decades later?POLLAND: I think - like all artists and all humanists and all historians, I think she would resent her poem being shaped into a simple policy statement.

Emma Lazarus Poem