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"Loving our Immigrant Neighbor: Seeking Truth through Psychology and Poetry."

Immigrants inhabit a reality seemingly far removed from our own. This project examines the lesser-known immigration realities of Chinese and Hispanic immigrants using the poems these immigrants have written. Far from a straightforward reading of the poems, the project attempts to see the poems as expressive of  the personal constructs of these immigrants, a concept pioneered by George Kelly though hereoriginally applied to poetry. These realities are then compared to the reality expressed in EmmaLazarus’ more famous immigration poem “The New Colossus.” In the end, the paper arguesthat understanding the realities of immigrants, rather than simply the often-taughtimmigration ideal, is a way toward loving our immigrant neighbors.