In another telling sign of how the last presidential election may have shifted the civic landscape, the Statue of Liberty has re-emerged as a potent and resonant symbol amid a polarizing debate about immigration. …
The statue, “Liberty Enlightening the World,” was dedicated in 1886, but was not originally intended to be a symbol of immigration.
With a broken chain at Liberty’s feet, the monument was conceived in France as a celebration of the abolition of slavery and the Union’s victory in the Civil War. But the meaning shifted over time because of the statue’s prominence in New York Harbor at a time when immigrants were arriving at nearby Ellis Island and the addition of the Lazarus poem in 1903.