Poems, Photographs
Tell Angel Island Story

It was often the oldest son who made the long journey to Gold Mountain. Families would scrape together the money to pay for his passage across the ocean. In America he could earn more money and send much of it back to China to support his family.

These early Chinese immigrants left China believing their adventure would one day pay off for them, but it didn't always work out that way. At a time when their European counterparts were freely immigrating to America, Chinese immigrants had to struggle when they first reached American shores. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed restricting most Chinese from entering the US. Scholars, merchants, and the sons and daughters of American-born Chinese could enter the country but others were excluded.

So when Chinese immigrants arrived at the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay they had their work cut out for them: they had to prove to government interrogators their eligibility to enter the country. At Angel Island they were questioned, examined, confined for up to 22 months.

For many of these would-be Americans, Angel Island became an ordeal, a jail, the cruel hand of fate come between them and their dream of a new life of opportunity. In moments of despair, they questioned the wisdom of having set out to find a new life in America. Perhaps it would have been better to endure a predictable life of toil in village rice fields than subject themselves to such relentless questioning, such suspicions. On Angel Island they were on trial, jailed until proven innocent. They were far from home, far from certainty, unsure if their dreams could ever be realized. Many wrote poems on the walls of the barracks to pass the time, to fend off loneliness and despair.

The story of these early Chinese immigrants is told in an exhibition currently on display through Feb. 28 at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square. Titled "Gateway to Gold Mountain," the exhibit consists of photographs and text documenting the experiences of the many Chinese immigrants who passed through the Angel Island Immigration Station between 1910 and 1940. In conjunction with the traveling exhibit, the Chinese Historical Society of New England has mounted a second exhibit to highlight local Chinese history. Like the Gateway exhibit, it consists of photographs, text and documents.

The exhibit, said its creator, Daniel Quan, is meant to provide a window onto Chinese American history as well as draw attention to the discriminatory laws that made immigration from China so difficult through the first half of this century. Quan, an architect and president of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, said his non-profit group has been working to preserve Angel Island as an historic site and also help educate Americans on Chinese American immigration history. "It's sort of a missing link in American history," says Quan of the Chinese American experience.

"The history is largely unknown by the general public," added Quan, whose father was one of the detainees. "Part of our educational mission is to raise consciousness."

Quan said the Foundation also hopes to turn Angel Island - which was named a National Historic Landmark a year ago - into a "destination point" for visitors. Just as New York's Ellis Island is a point of interest for many Americans curious about their immigrant ancestors, Angel Island could serve a similar purpose for Asians and others who are curious about West Coast migrations. The barracks are now open to visitors and a small museum is on the site, which is now part of the California State Parks System.

The story of Angel Island represents a 'poignant part of our story" as Chinese Americans, said Grace Yong Madsen, president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, New England Chapter, which, along with the Chinese Historical Society of New England, is sponsoring the exhibition.

"Each immigrant group has the responsibility of telling the story of its people," she wrote in a letter announcing the exhibit to OCA members. "We tell our story so our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will know the source of their indomitable spirit, ingenuity and commitment to be part of this great nation of ours. We tell our story so that others will recognize us for the hardship we endured and our inner strength that made it possible for us to overcome prejudice and discrimination."

OCA member George Cha said the exhibit is meant to "educate the society at large about our origins."

"It's our story. It's the Chinese story of our immigration experience," said Cha, who added that the exhibition was funded by a grant from the Asian American Unity Fund. "That really made the whole project possible," said Cha.

The Chinese immigrants who arrived at Angel Island between 1910 and 1940 were still under the restriction of the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, an immigration law passed when Chinese immigrants had begun to compete more directly with whites for jobs. When the Gold Rush and railroad boom ended, Chinese immigrants who had been working in those industries had to look for jobs in other sectors of the economy, putting them in competition with whites for a limited number of jobs. Believing that the Chinese were taking their jobs, white workers and politicians worked in consort to keep the Chinese out of the US.

But while most Chinese were barred from entering the US following passage of the Exclusion Act, the children of American-born Chinese were still allowed to enter the US. With political turmoil and an economic depression racking China, many young Chinese were eager to make the long journey to America to find new opportunities to earn money for their families. One strategy developed by some Chinese to skirt the discriminatory Exclusion Law was to claim they were the sons of US residents. Since the San Francisco Earthquake and fire of 1908 had destroyed many city records, little information was available on the families of Chinese already in the US. Arrangements could be made to have an American-born resident vouch that a young person from his home village was his son. These were the "paper sons" who arrived in America with a family name different from their father's.

Believing that many of the Chinese were not the children of their sponsors, immigration officials devised a difficult test to determine if a person really was in fact the son of a US resident. They would ask both the sponsor and the immigrant questions about their village homes and about other family members. The immigrants would be coached before their arrival in the US and be in communication by letter with their sponsors to ensure that both sponsor and immigrant were telling the same story. People would study coaching books on board the ships, then "throw them overboard before the ship got into the harbor," said Quan.

People felt like they were being imprisoned, held against their wills," said Quan of the Angel Island experience.

Over 100 poems were recovered from the walls of the prison. "Those poems are probably some of the best records of what went on there," he said, explaining that a Japanese-American park ranger brought them to the attention of members of the Chinese community in the 1970s. The poems give readers a sense of the hopelessness experienced by the immigrants while they were being held. "A lot of them talk about this as a real hardship: If we had know this we would have stayed in China," he said. Few could speak English or fully understand what was happening to them.

In the end, however, only about 3 percent of the people who had been sent to the island were sent back to Asia. "Eventually people actually beat the system," said Quan, who added that the exhibit is also meant to draw attention to the "institutionalized racism" that led an earlier generation of Chinese immigrants to devise methods to circumvent the unfair immigration laws. Presenting the exhibit today, he said, also serves to remind Americans of the unfairness of laws meant to target specific ethnic or racial groups. In recent years California has again been experiencing a backlash against immigrants, said Quan. In one case, a law was passed that appeared to specifically target Mexicans.

In addition to the exhibit, the organizers this week also held a companion workshop for educators and a reception for the local Chinese American community. The workshop offered tips on how to bring the Chinese American experience into the classroom as well as how educators can address the needs of the rising number of Chinese Americans in their classrooms.

Poem by an Unknown Angel Island Poet

Imprisoned in the wooden building day after day,
My freedom withheld; how can I bear to talk about it?
I look to see who is happy but they only sit quietly.
I am anxious and depressed and cannot fall asleep.
The days are long and the bottle constantly
empty; my sad mood even so, is not dispelled
Nights are long and the pillow cold; who can
pity my loneliness?
After experiencing such loneliness and sorrow,
Why not just return home and learn to plow
the fields.