To breathe free

November 19, 2015

Washington, Iowa

To the Editor:

This past summer, my husband and I visited the gravesite of my great-great-great-grandparents in a small town in Wales. Their son, my great-great-grandfather, came to the U.S. at a time with the mining industry was treating miners as slave labor. He felt he had no choice. The Statue of Liberty and the following inscription written by Emma Lazarus would later come to represent refugees everywhere:

?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-tossed, to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!?

As the family story goes, he ended up taking his own life; his depression and the trauma of what he had been through were too much to bear, but his great wish came true. His descendants worked hard and did have a better life because of his dream to come to America. His great-great-grandchildren were the first generation in the family to attend college. Yes, it took that long, but it happened.

When the St. Louis, an ocean liner carrying mostly Jewish passengers trying to escape Germany in 1939, was turned back from entering the United States, some of the refugees found shelter in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. They were the lucky ones. The fate of the rest was much different. Although the sympathy for their plight was acknowledged in America, we did not help them when we had the chance.

So, now we are in the 21st century. Yes, I know ? I know ? some things are different and yet some things are still the same. If we do not allow politics or selfishness or fear to get in the way, we can show compassion for other human beings, no matter the origin of their country, the color of their skin, language or religion.

We cannot expect Europe to take care of all the refugees who are flooding their borders. We must not be silent and hope ?the problem? goes away. There is suffering on the other side of the world and just beyond our borders to the south as well. How will history judge us?

Susan See