A thirteen-year-old boy, his possessions close at hand and surrounded by strangers, is on his way to New Jersey. He left his small Italian town for a multi-day trek by foot and train to Naples and then boarded a ship, one larger than any he had ever seen. He is alone in the North Atlantic, a place feared for its swells and storms. He will, in the coming days, sail past the Statue of Liberty looming over the scene as both inspiration and welcome, her copper exterior weathered to seafoam except for the golden flame of her torch.
My children’s great-great grandfather passed the Statue of Liberty in 1914 on his way to Ellis Island before beginning work at his Uncle Dominic’s barber shop in Jersey City. A few years ago, we located the passenger manifest, and it confirmed the epic nature of the story. He had been alone. He had made the arduous journey amidst the swells and storms, jaw set, full of courage, all by himself. There his name sat on the manifest in flowing cursive, a young boy from a small town named Panni. The names surrounding him bore witness to the slimmest details of their origin stories: Names, ages, professions, destinations, and the towns they departed from. Every person on the page, save for the boy, was from a place other than Panni. His name lay among 20 and 30-somethings who were listed as bakers and shoemakers, tailors and farmers.
Alone. A young boy, all alone at sea amidst strangers.
I turned the pages of the manifest out of curiosity. Who were these people? What were their stories? Where were they going? I turned to the next page and then the next. Name after name of young Italians seeking a new life. Then I noticed a man in his twenties named Paulo. He was from Panni, oddly enough. I moved my finger up the column and then noticed another man from Panni. And then another and another and finally, one more. The myth, if not shattered, was ripe for examination. The boy had not been alone after all. He had almost certainly traveled with a group of men, all from the same small town in rural Foggia. Surely, they had been instructed to look after the boy, to make sure he ate, to make sure he was safe, to make sure he behaved himself until he met his Uncle Dominic in Jersey City. Perhaps those men all swore, that until they were past the Statue of Liberty and on firm ground, they’d watch that thirteen-year-old with vigilance.
Not long ago, I transported a mom and her daughters to their new apartment in Hudson County. They had come from Nicaragua via Costa Rica and the mom eagerly chatted with me while the daughters remained quiet in the back seat, shy and removed, undoubtedly wondering where they were going next. They had fled their home in Nicaragua many years prior, their journey exponentially longer than the extraordinary trips across the Atlantic a hundred years earlier. As we crossed the Casciano Bridge, I began to point out the buildings in Manhattan that were now on the horizon. The reaction was muted, to say the least. The Empire State Building didn’t raise any eyebrows and neither did the Freedom Tower. Tough crowd!
We continued on I-78 and I glimpsed the golden torch off to my right. I pointed to the back of the Statue of Liberty expecting the same restrained response, especially from the rear seat. But eyes lit up, voices became loud, excited chatter emerged. The mom knew quite a lot about the Statue of Liberty. “Un regalo de Francia,” she told me. I nodded. “That’s right,” I said. “She is a gift.”
In 1984, the Statue of Liberty was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. UNESCO states that it is a “masterpiece of the human spirit…inspiring ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights…and opportunity.” The statue, like resettlement work itself, points us toward a story about America and its people. What is a country, if not a story? A country is as firm and flimsy as a story or a collection of stories. Like all captivating stories, when told often enough, some of the details evolve. Monuments provide us with a version of a story that many agreed at a fixed moment was worth safeguarding. As we have seen throughout history, just because a monument exists, it does not protect the story or the ideals that it represents from modern scrutiny.
In resettlement work, when we help people come to our nation, we know that the ideals that the Statue of Liberty is intended to inspire, can be difficult to locate. Many of our clients struggle for peace and opportunity. They face enormous challenges, especially during their first few months, when they must sometimes learn a new language, a new culture, and a new way of being all at once.
Some of our clients are alone and some of them are young, so young that it is achingly unfair that they must manage the traumas that have been thrust upon them. They travel, arrive alone, and do not know anyone in this large country. When they tell their stories later, I hope that there is, like my children’s great-great grandfather, an awareness that in the end, when the legacy of their lives is recounted, that, it turned out, they were not alone at all. That with a careful examination, it was possible to recall that people provided hospitality and offered small mercies or large volumes of time and talent. Neighbors and new friends pitched in. Professionals, not just refugee resettlement case managers, but teachers and social workers, librarians and nurses, all formed a quilt of support that enabled someone new to this nation to flourish.
I believe that the story the Statue of Liberty inspires is still our story, our legacy, our reason to be. That’s not because America has always been a place of opportunity or peace or human rights for everyone who arrived, but because I want it to be such a place. Good patriots, as William Sloane Coffin once said, are not uncritical lovers or loveless critics. Rather, it is as vital as ever that we look at the stunning statue in New York Harbor and wonder again what it now represents. Are the ideals that it inspires worth safeguarding? Will we believe that America should be a country of opportunity, a nation of liberty, a land where human rights are cherished?
I wonder what that boy thought as he saw the golden torch on the horizon welcoming him a hundred or so years ago. Perhaps he was nervous, perhaps he was excited or awestruck. But he was not alone. He was never alone. I look at the Statue of Liberty and remember that he saw the same monument as his introduction both to this country and to a particular story about this country, surrounded by people who supported him. In my own way and out of deep gratitude for those who looked after my children’s great-great grandfather and many others who found their way here, I try to pay that gratitude forward through my work. It is a way to tell the story of this country, my country and the nation I want it to be.
David Shaw is the Associate Director of CWS Jersey City. To learn more about the work of CWS Jersey City, visit their website.