Immigration to the United States: Angel Island

This website is based on true events of Chinese immigrants when they carved poetry into the walls while being detained from racial Exclusion laws in the early 20th Century. This is their story.

The poems at Angel Island are among the most dramatic finds in American literature. The crumbling buildings of the former immigration station in San Francisco were scheduled to be demolished, when bits and pieces of Chinese writing were glimpsed behind the peeling paint. These characters turned out to be poetry, carved into the wooden walls of the station by would be immigrant laborers from China. As a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, these sojourners were detained, sometimes for months, on this island in San Francisco Bay.

In 1970, the rediscovery of Chinese poetry carved into the deteriorating walls of the barracks saved the site from destruction and led to renewed interest in the Angel Island Immigration Station. Sparked by the discovery, Bay Area Asian Americans, spearheaded by Paul Chow, formed the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee (AIISHAC). This organization studied how best to preserve the station for historical interpretation.

Timeline of the history of Angel Island from 1769.

Like people of other ethnicities, the Chinese immigrated to the United States for better lives. Before 1900, their work included farming, mining and building railroads. Men sent money home to their families in China.

The island is alive with history… three thousand years ago it served as a fishing and hunting site for Coastal Miwok Indians. It was later a haven for Spanish Explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala, a cattle ranch, and a U.S. Army post starting with the Civil War.

Angel Island is located in the San Francisco Bay on the west coast of the United States. At various times from about 1863 to 1910, Angel Island was used for such functions as discharge depot, infantry garrison, and military camp. Beginning in 1910, Angel Island became the headquarters of the Angel Island Immigration Station, which processed about 175,000 Asian immigrants entering into the United States from China and then later from other countries such as the Philippines, Korea, and Japan.

Although Chinese people could not gain citizenship by naturalization, by law anyone who was born in the United States was automatically a citizen. By the turn of the century there were more than sixty-five hundred U.S. citizens of Chinese descent who had been born in the country.

The article discusses the Angel Island Immigration Station Restoration and Preservation Act related to immigration of Asian people in the United States. The article also outlines the history of a Chinese immigrant, Wong Kai Chong who left China at the age of 12 to join his father in the U.S. Kai's experience is detailed in the book Kai's Journey to Gold Mountain published by the Angel Island Association.

The article reports that U.S. President George W. Bush has signed the Angel Island Immigration Station Restoration and Preservation Act and which would provide a funding for the establishment of a museum and research center in Angel Island in San Francisco, California. It presents an overview of the difficulties experienced by the Chinese immigrants who entered the U.S. from 1910-1940. Beginning 2007, the main buildings in the island will reopen to the public and the writings left by the immigrants will be illuminated for all to see.