The ongoing importance of immigration is a timely message conveyed by today’s #stampoftheday, which, oddly enough, comes one day after the president’s most recent anti-immigrant action. (If you missed it, yesterday he issued an executive order that blocks the entry of many foreign workers, expands an April executive order denying green cards to applicants in several different categories, and, according to the Washington Post, “piled on new regulatory changes for asylum seekers.”
Against those actions, today I offer you a 3-cent stamp featuring the Statue of Liberty, that was issued on June 24 1954. It was part of the so-called “Liberty Series” of stamps issued from 1954 until 1961. The series (which was the last to include a half-cent stamp) was supposed to honor guardians of freedom throughout U.S. history. Some of those portrayed, such as Washington and Jefferson, had previously appeared on many US stamps. But others such as John Jay, Patrick Henry, and General John Pershing were newcomers to the stamp pantheon. In addition to the Statue of Liberty (which appears on three stamps in the series), the series also included several stamps showing famous locations important to America’s democratic history, such as Bunker Hill, Independence Hall, the Alamo, Mt. Vernon, the Hermitage (Andrew Jackson’s home), and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, NM. And, in a radical departure for its times, the one woman in the series wasn’t Martha Washington. Instead it was Susan B. Anthony!
The 3-cent Statue of Liberty stamp was issued in conjunction with the 200th anniversary of the Albany Congress, which for the first time brought together representatives many of Britain’s North American colonies to discuss common concerns. Attendees, who came from 7 of the 13 British colonies (Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island) discussed such issues as better relations with the American Indian tribes and common defensive measures against the French threat from Canada in the opening stage of the French and Indian War. They also debated, but ultimately rejected, Benjamin Franklin’s proposal to create a unified colonial government with a legislative body and a president appointed by the King of England. Many elements of his plan, however, became part of the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution.
Most those delegates weren’t born in the colonies (i.e. they were immigrants) or were children of people who weren’t born in the colonies (i.e. they were the children of immigrants). So the stamp and the event it honors is a reminder of the central role that immigrants have always played in our national life. And while the stamp is too small to include it, it does make me think of the Emma Lazarus poem at the statue’s base, which, of course, reads, in part:
“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.”
I want that country back again. Or—if it never really existed—I’d like to live in that country in the future.
Stay safe, be well, fight for justice and work for peace.