The Statue of Liberty National Monument consists of two islands: Liberty Island (which hosts the State of Liberty ) and Ellis Island, the site of the Ellis Island immigration station and an associated hospital complex. Liberty Island became a national monument under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Ellis Island was included in the site in the 1960s. During its heyday from the late 19th century until its closure in the 1950s, 12 million people were processed on Ellis island, and it is for many the symbol of immigration in the United States. The Statue of Liberty plays a similar role. As Emma Lazarus’s 1883 poem, “The New Colossus," proclaims: 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 lam...
Occasional posts on anthropologically interesting science fiction, anthropological futures and my own future as an anthropologist.