Abstract:

On Angel Island, the history is written on the walls. From 1910 until 1943, Chinese immigrants to America passed through Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, the Ellis Island of the West. Unlike other groups, the Chinese were legally discriminated against under an 1882 law called the Chinese Exclusion Act. This program looks at how two women—one an artist, the other a documentary filmmaker—are raising funds and awareness to have the old immigration station restored. Slated for destruction, the station was spared in 1970 when a park ranger discovered, beneath layers of paint, poems written by anxious detainees about their fears of deportation.