Saum Song Bo, a Chinese-American student, wrote a poignant essay in response to the fundraising campaign calling for donations to the construction of the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal. Published in the New York Sun in 1885, he points out the irony of asking Chinese-Americans, a demographic still being oppressed and discriminated against since the Chinese Exclusion Act was implemented three years earlier, to support a monument dedicated to representing the values of freedom and equality. He writes,
“But the word liberty makes me think of the fact that this country is the land of liberty for men of all nations except the Chinese...That statue represents Liberty holding a torch which lights the passage of those of all nations who come into this country. But are the Chinese allowed to come? As for the Chinese who are here, are they allowed to enjoy liberty as men of all other nationalities enjoy it? Are they allowed to go about everywhere free from the insults, abuse, assaults, wrongs and injuries form which men of other nationalities are free?”
He challenges the passivity that had become associated with the ideas of freedom and brings to the forefront of mainstream media the injustices that so many Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans were suffering. Additionally, he highlights the hypocrisy of the French donating the statue out of solidarity and support to the values of liberty when they were at this time colonizing Vietnam and oppressing the Tonkinese and Annamese Chinese people who resided there.
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