Lady Liberty Stood in the Shadow of the Twin Towers
Twenty years ago today, only a handful would know what was to come in two days. Our world, the United States of America, would change forever on September 11, 2001.
Lady Liberty stood in the shadow of the World Trade Center as the towers fell to the ground. She has stood in the harbor since 1886, a gift from France, as millions of immigrants have passed by the Statue, the symbol of freedom offered to them.
Recently, an immigrant from Brazil of Portuguese heritage, Cris Freire, came to Jasper County and bought a home.
She had dreamed for many years of coming to the United States to escape the high crime, poverty and dead end life that she had known in Brazil. Her dreams had started in Brazil when she saw television shows about life in the United States and the opportunities. One day she found her way out when she met a woman on Facebook that offered her a place to live and work in the United States.
Unfortunately, the Facebook friend was someone who scammed immigrants and forced them to live and work with little pay. Cris’ skill set was limited to experience she got in a course on beauty after dropping out of school to work and help feed her family. Through customers that she met working in the spa salon operated by the Facebook scammer, she was able to leave and rent a small cubicle in a mall-type location. After years of working from morning to night in the spa salon, then driving an Uber vehicle until 2 a.m. she was able to start her own spa salon business.
Of course, kind people helped her to achieve her dream and then she really achieved the American dream of owning a home in a most unlikely place, Jasper County. A life history like hers could be a book or movie. In a matter of days, she will go before the United States Naturalization Board to answer questions to become a citizen No doubt most of us would not be able to meet the demands of this board.
Cris raves about her wonderful life in the United States and describes it as like living in a beautiful movie. She is but one of the millions of immigrants who have come here including all of our ancestors.
September 11th
As we look back on one of the darkest days in our history, the shining lamp that the Statue of Liberty holds has never been extinguished.
Emma Lazarus, the daughter of. Portuguese immigrants of Jewish faith, was commissioned to write the poem that is engraved inside the pedestal that holds Lady Liberty Three years before the Statue was erected, Lazarus poem was used to raise funds to pay for the pedestal that would hold the Statue.
Her famous words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door”.
