A Malaysian meets America's most famous lady and finds a story built by immigrants [WATCH]

Perhaps it's because America never felt entirely foreign to me. As a Malaysian, I'd been exposed to so much of it long before I ever set foot there: the movies, music, sitcoms, presidents and instantly recognisable landmarks, along with all those grand ideas about the American Dream and the Land of the Free.

But the America I'd been reading about lately seemed rather different from the one Hollywood sold us.

Donald Trump was back in the White House, immigration enforcement had intensified and tariffs had once again become part of the conversation back home in Malaysia. More recently, controversy erupted after Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, a decision the news organisations challenged on press freedom grounds.

For a Malaysian journalist watching from thousands of kilometres away, America seemed full of contradictions. Yet there was one American icon I'd always wanted to see: the Statue of Liberty.

Blame Hollywood. I've watched enough movies to feel as though Lady Liberty and I go way back. I've seen her half-buried in Planet of the Apes, frozen in The Day After Tomorrow and battered in 2012. Hollywood has drowned her, frozen her and generally subjected the poor woman to more indignities than most movie stars could survive.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, I was going to meet her.

LADY LIBERTY

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I was in New York on assignment but, with a little time to myself, decided on a side quest. Armed with ChatGPT and Google Maps, which became my very patient New York guides, I took the train from Newark to the World Trade Centre Transportation Hub, and emerged beneath the magnificent white ribs of the Oculus.

From there, I walked to Battery Park, which turned into rather more walking than I'd anticipated. At some point, I began to wonder whether ChatGPT and Google Maps had conspired to help me achieve my daily step count!

The waterfront walk was beautiful, though, and somewhere along the way I caught my first glimpse of her. There she was in the distance, instantly recognisable, standing in New York Harbour with her torch held high. After years of seeing her in movies, postcards and photographs, the sight of the real thing was unexpectedly breathtaking.

GETTING CLOSER

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Naturally, seeing her from afar only made me want to get closer. For US$25.80, about RM109 at the time, my Pedestal Reserve ticket included the ferry, access to the pedestal and Ellis Island. I'd wanted to go all the way up to the crown, but those limited tickets are snapped up quickly and usually need to be booked well in advance.

Soon I was aboard the ferry, trying to look like a seasoned traveller while quietly concentrating on staying upright as the boat bobbed beneath my feet.

It's only a short ride to Liberty Island, but as we drew closer and Lady Liberty grew larger against the skyline, whatever cool journalist persona I might have possessed promptly disappeared.

I gaped, gasped and took far too many photographs, much to the bemusement of fellow passengers who appeared considerably more restrained.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

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Officially called Liberty Enlightening the World, the statue was a gift from France to the United States. Designed by French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, with Gustave Eiffel responsible for her internal framework, she was dedicated in 1886.

What intrigued me even more was the story of how her pedestal was funded. America was responsible for paying for it, but the money was running out when Joseph Pulitzer, the Hungarian-born immigrant and publisher of The New York World, launched a fundraising campaign. His newspaper promised to publish the name of every donor, regardless of how little they gave.

The response was extraordinary. In just five months in 1885, about 125,000 people contributed more than US$100,000, much of it in donations of US$1 or less.

There's something wonderfully democratic about an immigrant publisher rallying ordinary people, many of them immigrants themselves, to help complete what would become America's great symbol of liberty.

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More than 140 years later, that history carries a certain irony. Immigration is once again at the heart of a fierce American debate, yet some of the hands and small donations that helped Lady Liberty rise above New York Harbour belonged to people who'd arrived in America from somewhere else.

My ticket also took me up to the pedestal observation level, mercifully by lift after all that walking, where the views across New York Harbour towards Manhattan are magnificent.

Back at ground level, the Statue of Liberty Museum tells her story and houses her original torch, removed during restoration in the 1980s. Free ranger-led tours are also available, while an audio tour is included with the ferry ticket.

MOVING FORWARD

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Before leaving, I took one last look at Lady Liberty and noticed something I'd somehow missed in all those years of seeing her on screen: broken shackles and chains at her feet, symbolising freedom from slavery and oppression, and her raised right foot, as though she's stepping forward.

Our eyes are naturally drawn upwards towards the crown and that famous torch, but perhaps what lies at her feet matters just as much. For all the contradictions of today's America, she continues to hold aloft an ideal larger than the monument itself.

Lady Liberty matters not because America has always lived up to everything she represents, but because ideals matter precisely when reality falls short of them.

And more than a century after she first raised her torch over New York Harbour, that lifted foot still seems to say something important: there's always further to go.