Does the Statue of Liberty still face out?

Woman watches the State of Liberty. (Photo by cmart7327 for Getty Images)

The young father raised his hand and asked a haunting question. It was September 2005; I was working for the U.S. State Department at the time and meeting with a group of parents at an after-school program in Istanbul, Turkey. The public diplomacy staff at the American embassy had recognized that too many local kids were getting into trouble because they had nothing constructive to do after their daily classes ended. So modeling America’s can-do spirit of volunteerism and community service, the staff had worked with Istanbul parents to develop a volunteer-led after-school games and reading program to provide students a better alternative. The young father who spoke up had watched quietly as this visiting U.S. government official read to the students and chatted with the other parents, then abruptly raised his hand.  The translator turned to me: “I’m not sure exactly how to translate this, but he wants to know: ‘Does the Statue of Liberty still face out?’” 

I instinctively understood what he meant. This was just a few years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, after the United States understandably had to strengthen our homeland security and enact stricter immigration and visa policies. The initial outpouring of global sympathy had turned into concern, especially in the Muslim world, that America was closing itself off. The young man was asking: is the United States still that welcoming country, that beacon of opportunity that I dreamed it to be?  Is it still a place that embraces immigrants seeking a better life, the country that captured the world’s imagination as a refuge for the huddled masses yearning to be free? 

It’s a question much of the world is once again asking today, as America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday: Does the Statue of Liberty still face out? 

Back in Istanbul my answer had been, yes, Lady Liberty does face out. I believe it’s vitally important that our answer always remains yes, that our country resists the temptations of isolationism and protectionism and stays engaged with the wider world.   

Unfortunately, our 250th birthday celebration seems to find us in a fit of national selfishness. We’ve shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development and eliminated an estimated 85% of our emergency food aid programs, a statistic that sears my soul as I remember the many times I arrived in countries to find large groups of desperate people waiting for lifesaving aid.  It always made me so proud of our country that we were there to help in some of the most difficult, darkest circumstances. I felt that way when I saw our aid at work in Kashmir after devastating earthquakes, in Indonesia after a tsunami, in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the U.S. Naval Ship Comfort pulled into ports to provide medical treatment and donated eyeglasses to long lines of waiting people, many of them children.  In all those cases, our government partnered with volunteers, nongovernmental organizations, and private businesses to meet people’s needs. 

Retreating within ourselves is not fundamentally who we are as a country. As early as 1812, the United States sent five ships with $50,000 worth of wheat flour to feed survivors of an earthquake in Venezuela. We are the nation that rebuilt Europe after World War II. My former boss, President George W. Bush, rallied America to support the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in Africa, saving more than 26 million lives. He did it knowing, as he said, “When we confront suffering – when we save lives – we breathe hope into devastated populations, strengthen and stabilize society, and make our country and world safer.” He also did it based on the belief that “to whom much is given much is required” and understanding that America’s values call us to stand up for “the dignity and rights of every man and woman.”

The hospital ship USNS Comfort anchored off the coast of Colombia, 2011. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jonathen E. Davis/Released)

Our founding ideal that we are “created equal and endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” calls us to a high purpose. If we truly believe our rights are given by God, then they cannot be hoarded but must be shared.   

From our very founding, America has often failed to live up to our own grand ideals. As the historian Walter Isaacson reminds readers in his recent book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, 41 of the 56 men who signed America’s Declaration of Independence and boldly asserted that “all men are created equal” themselves owned slaves. But even when we struggle, even when we fail to live out our founding convictions, Americans have always aspired to them because we believe every person has God-given dignity, worth, and value.

In 1861, on the eve of the Civil War – at a time of even greater division than our country is facing now – President Abraham Lincoln called on Americans to heed the “better angels of our nature” in his first inaugural address. Those better angels have always been among us.  When I was in government, everywhere I went in the world, I found Americans – from volunteer doctors and nurses on medical missions, to young people helping teach English, to retirees providing disaster relief – serving to improve people’s lives. Many of them were motivated by faith. I see something similar all the time at home in my Austin, Texas, community, where volunteers provide food and clothing, read to school children, and visit prisoners. They also helped set up emergency shelters during the recent winter freeze.   

When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in 1831 and 1832, he was struck by the way he saw Americans voluntarily coming together to solve problems and contribute to the common good. That’s who we are as a people and a nation. That spirit is what makes America not just great, but good. And it’s what will keep America a beacon of hope and opportunity for a world that is yearning for both.