Crossing Into a New Country

Consider the following poems that speak to the immigrant experience. Are they expressing something universal, or are they too constrained by the specific experience of migrating to the United States? In what ways do they relate to the idea of thresholds and liminal spaces?

Emma Lazarus | “The New Colossus” (1883)
Adrienne Rich | “Prospective Immigrants Please Note” (1963)
Marilyn Chin | “We Are Americans Now, We Live in the Tundra” (1987)
Adrian Castro | “The Sound of One Immigrant Clapping” (2005)
Richard Blanco | “Mother Country” (2019)

A mother stands with one foot on the plane to America and one still on Cuban ground, clutching a suitcase that holds her wedding veil and a jar of dirt from her backyard.

Key concepts

Liminal Space: The in-between state of being no longer in your old life but not yet settled in the new — the immigrant lives in it longest; Castro's speaker needs 'years of forgetting' before he can say 'this is now my home.'

+ 3 more concepts inside

Every work — at a glance

The New Colossus — Emma Lazarus (poem)

Emma Lazarus's 1883 sonnet, later cast at the Statue of Liberty, that recast the statue as a 'Mother of Exiles' by the 'golden door' — and more or less wrote America's welcoming self-image.

+ 4 more works explained inside

What to know

01
The door is the spine of the whole set — Lazarus's 'golden door,' the literal door of “Prospective Immigrants Please Note,” Castro's 'portal,' Blanco's clutched doorknob — so migration here is defined less by the journey than by the single threshold that splits a life into before and after.

+ 1 more insight inside

Across subjects

The word 'liminal' comes from anthropology: van Gennep and Victor Turner described every rite of passage as three stages — separation, a disorienting 'liminal'

Theme connection

"Are We There Yet?"

Crossing the border isn't arriving; 'there' sits years past the landing, in the doorway, not the destination. Do these poems speak for all migration, or are they too bound to the American story? The ache of remaking a self is universal, yet the 'Mother of Exiles' and 'golden door' are myths too American for the poems to escape.

Practice — a sample

LITThe recurring image for the moment of migration in these poems is MOST like —

A A crossed doorway
B A locked cage
C A wide ocean
D A tall mountain
E A slowly burning bridge

Keep reading the full lesson

The remaining insights, works, and practice come with full access — $9.99/month or $29.99/season.

Unlock full access →

New here? Create a free account to read the free section.