Remembering the Land of the Free

It is the Fourth of July and as I proudly remember the birthday of the "land of the free and the home of the brave" I am also saddened at the passing of a great friend who enjoyed the freedoms we have in America.  But, this friend, being a Iranian-American of Armenian descent perhaps could more value the great blessing of the freedom afforded Americans in our constitution.

My friend Massis Avanessian passed from this life into the arms of his heavenly father on July 3rd.   He came to America in a near desperate manner.  As he looked at his life in Post-Shah Iran in the late 1970's, he realized that the freedoms he had before enjoyed were being stripped away as religious and racial prejudice became part of the new governments program.  One of the scariest aspects of this new perspective in Iran was that non-native ethnics groups were having their sons drafted into the army and sent to the front lines of the most dangerous and bloody war of the time.  Massis realized his young son would soon be sent to fight a useless war and most likely would not come back from the fighting.   That is when Massis made the plans to smuggle his son out of the country.  All of his family would eventually flee Iran and end up in the United States.  Here the Avanessians have enjoyed all the freedoms and liberties afforded all Americans.  They have made an outstanding contribution to our great land.  America is a better place because Massis came to the United States!  Thankfully, the message of Emma Lazarus' poem helped Massis and his family as they began to start a new life.  I wonder if the world still looks at America as the place of refuge?

The New Colossus

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!"