Angel Island - Poetry

[NZBC]

www.paperson.com/poems.htm

The poems at Angel Island are primarily carved into the walls of the men's barracks and a few other select locations in the building. Largely ignored for over thirty years and with the building scheduled for demolition, a state of California park ranger, Alexander Weiss, inquired about their significance but was rebuffed by his superiors. Weiss brought his San Francisco State Biology Professor, a Japanese-American named Dr. George Araki, to the barracks and Dr. Araki recognized the carvings as poems.

The building was eventually saved and preserved and is now a National Historic Landmark. However, the historic barracks are in an increasing state of disrepair. The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to renovating, preserving, and educating future generations about this significant site. Please visit and contribute at www.aiisf.com .

The four poems are examples of the one hundred plus poems that are found on the walls. NOTE: The translations do not match up with the photos.

Poem Translations Courtesy of University of Washington Press. "Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940", ISBN 0-295-97109-6.

[NZBC]

Angel Island Immigration Station Poetry

1910 - 1940

www.cetel.org/angel_poetry.html

These telling poems were written by overseas Chinese on the walls of the Angel Island Immigration station, located in the San Francisco bay. Between 1910 and 1940, as many as 175,000 Chinese immigrants were detained and processed at Angel Island. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Angel Island served more as a detention and deportation center than an immigration processing center. Thousands of Chinese were detained and interrogated at the barracks in a prison-like atmosphere for weeks, months or years. Life for the detainees was strange, stressful, demoralizing, and humiliating. Separated from family members, they were placed in crowded communal living quarters. One hundred persons would sleep in bunk beds, three high in columns, in a room about 1,000 square feet.


Also see our film: Island of Secret Memories

[NZBC]

www.fortunecity.com/littleitaly/amalfi/100/angel.htm

This document reproduces in its entirety a book published by The Women's American Baptist Home Missionary Society, Chicago, in 1917. It describes the processing of Asian immigrants through Angel Island in San Francisco Bay - the "Ellis Island" of the west. It also describes the various segments of San Francisco's Asian community, as perceived by a woman missionary.

The opinions and language used are indicative of the attitudes and prejudices of the time, and would not be considered "politically correct" today. I am placing it on the Internet as a contemporary account of Asian immigration in the early 1900s.

- Lou Alfano

[NZBC]

teacher.scholastic.com/activities/asian-american/angel_island/

Chapter 1: Life in China


In 1933, seven-year-old Li Keng Wong's life changed. Her father decided to move his family from a small village in China to the Chinatown in Oakland, California. Now, Li Keng will tell you her story from 70 years ago.


My father came to the United States in 1912 to search for a better life. There were no jobs in our small village of Goon Do Hung in southern China. My father needed money to take care of his new family and his widowed mother. When he first arrived in the United States, he did any kind of job he could get. After a while, he became an apprentice in a friend's herbal store.

He sent money home several times a year, and once in a while, he came for a short visit. After one of these visits, I was born in 1926. When I was young, I lived with my mother, older sister Li Hong, and younger sister Lai Wah.

As a child, I was a tomboy. I climbed trees, explored the forest behind the village, played hide-and-go-seek, hunted for bamboo shoots, and waded in the lake in front of village. Life was peaceful in our sleepy village. Villagers got along well and helped one another during the rice harvest twice a year.

Father came home once or twice that I could remember. He could never stay long because he had to go back to the United States to work. He never mentioned that someday that he wanted to take us to the United States, but he was thinking about it.

On his last visit home, he was sad at how poor the villagers were. They made a living by planting rice crops. People were so poor that no one had milk to drink or had much meat to eat. Almost no one had ever learned to read or write. So my father decided that his family must immigrate to the United States to have a better life.

When we decided to leave, it was 1933. I was only seven years old.

Chapter 2: Preparing to Leave

First, Father sent us a letter from America with some coaching papers. He explained to us that our mother couldn't enter the United States as his wife because there were laws that forbade a laborer to bring in a wife. The only Chinese men who were allowed to bring in wives were diplomats, students who were studying in the United States, and merchants. However, our mother could enter as his sister. He told us to call our mother "Auntie."

Once we got our father's letter, we used the coaching papers to study, and we had to memorize the answers to the questions. The authorities in the United States asked lots of questions before they allowed any Chinese in. Some of questions they asked:

When and where were you born?

What is your occupation?

Can you read any language?

What is your final destination in the United States?

Who is that lady with you? Is she your mother?
Mother, Li Hong, and I went over the questions and memorized the answers. Lai Wah was too young to do what we did. We practiced calling our mother "Auntie" many times. My father came back to the village to travel with us to America, and he helped us prepare our answers. Father kept saying, "You must never make a slip by calling your mother 'Mother.' If you make a mistake, the authorities will deport us back to China in shame." We nodded our heads when Father spoke to us. We didn't want to jeopardize our chance of entering the United States.
Chapter 3: Leaving Home

We were happy about our father's decision to bring us to America, but at the same time felt sad to leave our friends and neighbors.

Mother made preparations for us to leave. She gave away all our furniture, clothes, and utensils to our neighbors. We gave our small plot of land to a close relative, and our next-door neighbor lived in our house. We even had a water buffalo that was given to a very poor family in the village. All the villagers thanked us for our generosity and wished us good luck in the new world.

In 1933, only a few Chinese were allowed in. Because of the Chinese Exclusion act, only 4,928 Chinese were allowed to immigrate between 1931 and 1940 ¡ª compared with 339,570 immigrants from the United Kingdom. Our father was very lucky to obtain four spots in the quota for us. He never explained to us how he did it. It was a miracle!

Getting to the new world was not going to be easy. Even though we had four slots to enter the United States, we still had to get there! We traveled by foot, by boat, and by train just to get to Hong Kong!