“Lifting my lamp beside the golden door is partly rhetorical, kids” (2014)

Oliphant's work during the Obama years contrasts the hopes raised by the election of our first African American president with the unchanging dysfunctions of our politics and the emergence of a potent white nationalism. Oliphant uses a symbol of American democracy (in this case, the Statue of Liberty) to show how easily its meaning can be subverted. Immigration, and the story of what is “American,” is a constant throughout his work.