10/28/2025
Playwright Nahal Navidar holds an illustration titled “I Lift My Lamp Beside the Golden Door” by artist Jennifer Hom, 2017. The daughter of an immigrant, Hom created this piece to honor the millions of immigrants who found refuge and freedom in the beacon of Lady Liberty’s light. The image includes Nahal as a child, pointing to America’s shore and the possibilities ahead.
Today is the anniversary of the 1886 unveiling of the Statue of Liberty that some recognize as National Immigrants Day.
In The Unknown Variable, the Statue of Liberty is one in a series of images young Āvā recalls from her own experience immigrating to the United States during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. In Nahal’s poetry, the experience of the new world is highlighted by her mother’s tears.
While the Statue of Liberty is meant to represent “a world-wide welcome” (per the poem, The New Colossus, at its base), the ICE attacks happening in Chicago and across the country today contradict the contributions made and the lives lived by immigrants in America and the idea of freedom for anyone if there isn’t freedom for everyone.
In January, we offer The Unknown Variable as one story that represents so much of the universal human experience. And so much that is so specific to the experience of family separation embedded into our inhuman immigration system.
Today we hold both things; both pain and hope that the power of our people and our art can stand as strong as the statue that represents it.
