Engraved on the pillar supporting the Statue of Liberty is a poem by Emma Lazarus, titled "The New Colossus." We've all read it, but I'm asking you to read it again:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This is what America means to me--not "English as an official language," not "our European-American culture," not even "the melting pot." This is where our success comes from: Our willingness to embrace the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Russians, and so forth before they were considered safe and white, even if our pre-1965 immigration policies were in other respects racially biased.

Our country has not always lived up to the high standard Lazarus set in "The New Colossus"--it hasn't, more often than not--but when it has, it has it has made moral progress on behalf of the entire world. What we call American culture today is a direct result of these occasional displays of courage.