Poetry Friday: Denied, Deported, Detained

Statue of Liberty Dreams of Emma Lazarus, Awakens with Tears on her Cheeks

Naomi Shihab Nye

Give me your tired, your poor...
But not too tired, not too poor.
And we will give you the red tape,
the long line, white bread in its wrapper,
forms to fill out, and the looks, the stares
that say you are not where or what you should be,
not quirw, not yet, you will never live up to
us.

Your huddled masses yearning to be free...
Can keep huddling. Even here. Sorry to say this.
Neighborhoods with poor drainage
Potholes, stunning gunshots...
You'll teem here too.

You dreamed a kinder place, a tree
no one would cut, a cabinet to store your clothes.
Simple jobs brining payment on time.
Someone to stand up for you.
The way I used to do, for everyone. Holding my torch
to get you to your new home in this country stitched
of immigrants from the get-go...
But you would always be homesick. No one said that.

I was the doorkeeper, concierge, welcome chief,
But rules have changed and I'm bouncer at the big club.
Had no say in it, hear me? Any chnace I could be, again,
the one I used to be?

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
It's still up high. At night I tuck it into my robe.
And worry. What will happen to you?
Every taunt, every turn-around,
hand it over. That's not what you came here for.
I'll fold it into my rubbing rad,
Bring back a shine.

Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration Ann Bauseum

Well, the call has gone out for 2011 CYBILS judges (you should totally sign up!) So I decided it was about time I FINALLY finished going through my notes and writing up the last lingering books that were nominated in 2009. (I read them all in 2009, I just didn't get around to reviewing all of them.)

This book opens with the poem I posted above. There are 5 chapters-- Exlcuded tells to the story of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and anti-Chinese sentitment during the late 19th century. Deported looks at the case of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, Russian immigrants who became involved in the labor and anarchy movements at the beginning of the twentieth century and were deported for it after living in the US for decades. Goldman was already a citizen. Denied tells the of the ill-fated voyage of the St. Louis-- a ship of Jewish refugees who were denied port in Cuba and the US before returning to Hitler's Europe. Detained tells of Japanese internment during WWII. Exploited looks at the long history of Mexican immigration and the role of migrant workers in the US economy.

I wanted to like this one more than I did. It's beautifully done visually. The history is well explained and Bausum ties it in well with broader trends at the time as well as current events (and other events that happened between then and now.) The title chapters focus on just one family or person to give faces and names to some of the effected people. But... there is something about this book that I can't put my finger on that kept it from being truly awesome.

I ended up liking Bausum's Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I which I reviewed in March much better.

Today's Poetry Roundup is over at Miss Rumphius Effect.


Book Provided by... the publisher, for Cybils 2009 consideration

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Nonfiction Monday: Unraveling Freedom

Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I Ann Bausum

While American soldiers fought abroad, making the world safe for democracy, they steadily lost freedoms on American soil. Labor leaders and peace activists were shunned and even jailed for voicing anti-war sentiment. It became illegal to teach German in the public schools (and foreign language instruction in the US has never recovered) and many immigrants were treated with suspicion and derision.

Bausum explores these issues and more (I never thought about Prohibition gaining traction because of anti-German sentiment and the amount of German-American ownership of the brewing business...) in her beautiful book on free speech and other civil rights on the homefront during WWI.

My only complaint is that it's too short. (Including notes, bibliography, citations, etc, it's still only 88 pages.) As such, it fails to provide some necessary context. In the afterword, it discusses that one of the lasting effects of WWI was that "residents began to think of themselves as American's first, immigrants second (if at all)." (page 73) but it never really discusses the way the American landscape looked before WWI for readers to fully understand what a cultural change this was. It also draws frequent parallels between our WWI and our current situation. After the sinking of the Lusitania, we were pulled into a large war and lost many freedoms. After 9/11, we were pulled into a war and lost many freedoms. While these parallels are interesting and make sense to adults without much explanation, the target audience of this book (upper middle grade/tween) does not remember a pre-9/11 world. In a year or two, the target audience of this book will have not lived in a pre-9/11 world* and so these comparisons are more confusing than useful.** And the book doesn't provide the pre-9/11 context needed.

These are issues that would have been easily solved by adding in some more material, and it wouldn't have bogged down the book or made it too long.

Visually, this book is very stunning. It makes good use of a faded red, white, and blue color scheme and very consciously mimics WWI propaganda posters. There's even a lengthy design note which discusses this and other design decisions included with the CIP data on title verso. Am I such a geek that a design note gets me overly excited? Yes, yes I am.

So overall, I really liked it, I just wanted (and I think younger readers will need) more.


Round up is over at Chapter Book of the Day.


*yes, I feel really old now, too.

**A few years ago, a 9-year-old asked me if I had heard about this time "a long time ago, when some guys flew airplanes into some big buildings." And this was a kid who had lived his entire life within 15 miles of the Pentagon.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.