Breaking Through

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“El Nuevo Coloso: Another Look at Emma Lazarus”

In this activity, students will revisit the poem “The New Colossus” in light of what they’ve read in Breaking Through, considering it from a lens that takes into account more recent immigrant stories, like Panchito’s and other Mexican American immigrants.

The 1903 poem “The New Colossus” by poet Emma Lazarus is perhaps most famous for being inscribed on a bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The Statue of Liberty is located on Ellis Island, which was the hub for migrants making their way into the US from Europe in the early 20th century, and the poem is often regarded as emblematic of the American “melting pot.