Angel Island

As I read the book, the Dragon's Child, I started thinking more about Angel Island.  Have you heard of Angel Island?  According to www.AngelIsland.com, it is "Known as the "Ellis Island of the West," Angel Island processed millions of immigrants between 1910 – 1940. Most of these immigrants were Asian, and were subjected to medical exams, interrogations, and even extended internment in their search for a new life in a new land. Visit USIS, take a tour and learn about the courage and heartbreak that defined the immigrant experience during this period of discrimination and hardship."  Although Angel Island is "known" as the Ellis Island of the west, there was no Lady Liberty welcoming immigrants with out stretched arms here.  The Angel Island immigrants were welcomed with wooden barracks, bereft of furniture except for bunks stacked three beds high (the Chinese learned to bring their own bed roll as the bunks were merely frames---no bedding); then there were the tests,and  interrogations, to name a few things.  The reason for the interrogations?  It was "to determine if they were who they claimed to be."  My great-grandfather, grandfather, great-uncle and a third great-uncle were all processed at Angel Island.  Here are some images of Angel Island, an interview/interrogation and poetry carved into the walls by those awaiting response to see if they would enter the United States of America or be sent back to China.  (To learn more about the poetry carved into the walls at Angel Island see http://www.poeticwaves.net/.)

 
Sometime this summer as we travel to the National Archives near San Francisco, we will take a "field trip" to Angel Island because that is where some of my ancestors first arrived.  It's another way to make a connection and feel another level of gratitude to family members who sacrificed so much for a better life for their family, and future generations, like me.