Kraut, you have spent your professional career as an historian studying u. S. Immigration. Many americans look to the statue of libertys famous poem by emma lazarus that says give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free as the embodiment of the way we think about this country and immigration. As you look at history, does it track with the reality of how we have treated immigrants . Dr. Kraut the history of immigration in the u. S. Doesnt track at all with emma lazaruss wonderful quotation. It has been a lovehate relationship. In the 19th century, there was a popular immigrant saying, america beckons but americans repel. That is more accurate as to how our relationship with immigration has been in the United States. One of the great ironies is that emma lazarus wrote the poem in 1883, and one year before, in 1882, the u. S. Passed the chinese exclusion law, excluding chinese laborers from coming to the United States. We would pass in the years after that i