Angel Island

People from around the globe

have been immigrating to America
since it’s founding.

It’s made up of immigrants.

Many seeking greater opportunity
in pursuit of the American dream.

No matter your background, chances are
you’re a descendent of an immigrant.

You may have heard of
New York’s Ellis Island,

where millions of immigrants passed
the Statue of Liberty to reach the U.S.

But do you know Angel Island,
the Ellis Island of the West?

Question, what is Angel Island?

And what stories does
this small island have to tell?

So I’m going to Angel Island
in San Francisco and meeting with Ben Lee…

a Chinese American whose father
originally immigrated here in 1915.

What is Angel Island?

Angel Island is a multi-layer
history of California.

It’s Ellis island with a
little asterisk, that it was really not

for welcoming folks to enter in,
but really say hey it’s a gate here.

The first major wave
of Chinese immigration

occurred in the mid to late 19th Century,

when over 300,000 people
crossed the Pacific to work as laborers,

most notably on the transcontinental
railroad and in the mining industry.

Well, the history of the Chinese coming
is long since they started in the 1820s.

Subsequent was the gold rush,
subsequently was the Chinese railroad.

But by the late 1800s,

racial discrimination began
to infiltrate federal policy,

as the American public rallied against
the newest immigrants

out of racist anxiety and job concerns.

And then all of a sudden there was a big
movement - the Chinese must go,

and because we were taking away jobs
and we were different. 1882 the only law

in US government was passed
that targeted a specific ethnic group

the Chinese, from coming in to America.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed
into law on May 6th, 1882 and was

designed to restrict free immigration
and prohibit the Chinese.

And by 1910, Angel Island had become
a primary detention center

for East Asian immigrants.

Officers were tasked with
enforcing the law and processing

more than 300,000 people,
over 100,000 of them Chinese.

But out of 300,000, it was very much
the folks that were not Chinese

had a much easier time coming,
very much patterned after Ellis Island.

Whereas the Chinese, the saying goes
we were guilty until proven innocent,

because of what we were considered
as false identity.

- You have a personal connection to this?
- Yes

Can you tell me about that?

My father when he was 15 years old
thought he was coming

for the Pan-Pacific Exposition
in San Francisco.

Little did he know, at 15 years old that

he was gonna end up at Angel Island.
And he was here under an assumed name,

that we think is his name still,
but he had a paper brother.

A paper son or daughter is a term
used for Chinese born immigrants

who used false papers stating that they
were blood relatives to American citizens.

To better understand
what they went through,

I’m meeting with park ranger Ben Fenkell.

So can you tell me, what were
the conditions like for someone who

crossed the sea and is detained here,
living here?

Conditions were really cramped.
You picked a bed that was open.

Intimidating. Scary, stressful place.
You had people in here who didn’t speak

the same languages as you so often
you were here feeling like you were alone

even though you were in a space with
up to 60 people.

Odors and smells and levels of hygiene.

And people getting up in the middle of
the night to use restrooms.

There were no ladders to bunks,
so people were climbing up and down

to get to their bunks.
It wasn’t a great place,

but it was the only place they had
while they were being detained here.

You see a lot of people come in,
a lot of students.

What do you tell them

why this is important
to understand what happened here?

If they look at all the stories and things
they will find in the news today.

Online, TV, newspapers.

If they look at those stories
and find stories of immigration,

they are going to realize those stories
that they're reading about today

are stories that basically happened here
100 years ago.

So hopefully they're making
the connections of the past and present

and making better choices for our country.

To help cope, many detainees
carved poems in the walls.

Even if it is built of jade, it is turned
into a cage.

This was behind a wall in a bathroom

so no one really knew
this was here for like fifty years.

And so to see this,

you can kind of feel what it might
have been like to some degree.

I can’t possibly come here and
really understand

what it would have
been like 100 years ago.

Leaving your family, going across
the sea for the first time,

coming to a place and not
knowing what’s going to happen.

But the imprint of those words
that tried to be hidden,

but history had a way
of finding them again.

Officials here didn’t really want
them to be seen, put putty in that.

But over time that actually
preserved them.

Decades later, the paint peeled away

and we see the thoughts and
feelings that people had here.

That’s what I’ll remember.