Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Author of best-selling books such as The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende recounts the circumstances that led to her unexpected settlement in northern California and her eventual U.S. citizenship.  Sprinkled liberally with amusing observations, Allende’s discussion with journalist William Wong also delves into the tragic circumstances of her daughter Paula’s illness and death.  Allende honors her daughter’s memory through a foundation dedicated to needy immigrants.

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In 2009, after Mabel had passed away, our family obtained the Freedom of Information Act A-files on Mabel’s mother Soto Shee. Within those files were details of their immigration experience that were previously unknown to us. It is a story of survival and hope.

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When many people think of immigration experiences to the United States, the most prominent aspects that come to mind are stories filled with challenges and heartbreak. Portes and Rumbaut write in their book Immigrant America that an immigrant's move "is commonly portrayed as a one-way escape from hunger, want, and persecution” (Portes & Rumbaut 2006:13). When I began my discussion with Eric Anthony, who immigrated to the United States from Malaysia, he warned me that his story was not one of these, that in fact, his experience was precisely the opposite. “I’m one of those successful immigrant stories. I’ve had very good luck. And hard work, a combination. A lot of kind people have helped me in so many ways, with intelligent thoughts and kind words, and have always guided me. I’ve always felt that I was the lucky one.” What I found through interviewing him, however, is that his success has been a direct result of his amazingly positive mindset, which he has been able to maintain even when faced with challenges many people are never confronted with throughout their entire lives.

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California College of the Arts graduate film student Robert Gomez recently profiled Masayuki "Jim" Ariki and Li Keng Wong for a video installation in the Immigration Station barracks on Angel Island. Sadly, Jim passed away soon after the interview, on January 21, 2013. He was born Jan. 20, 1923 in Fresno, and went to Japan with his family when he was two years old. He returned alone in 1937 and worked in the Delta until he met his future wife, Asa Tsuboi. They married in 1941, were interned in Poston, Arizona during World War II, and for the next 58 years, they raised a family and enjoyed numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His story is profiled in Erika Lee and Judy Yung's Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America and you can view the 8-minute video here. See more of Robert Gomez Hernandez's work on his website.

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My grandfather Vaishno Das Bagai was born in Peshawar, India, in 1891, the younger of two sons. He was from a high-class family, well educated and an early supporter of India’s freedom and independence from the British. He was engaged to my grandmother Kala when they were about three or four years old, according to Indian custom then.

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The yellowing old photos show a sprightly young woman of 18 taking a sea voyage to San Francisco. It could be any vacation photo from 1940. But the smiling face and sea breezes belie the harrowing journey taken by Jewish refugee Eva Schott.

She and her family fled Berlin in 1940, among the last Jews able to leave Nazi Germany. They took a train through the USSR and China, and then sailed on an ocean liner from Yokohama to the U.S. immigration station on Angel Island.

While historians have explored the long and often unjust treatment of Japanese and Chinese on Angel Island, much less is known about the thousands of Russians, Eastern Europeans and Jews who came to the U.S. via Asia. Angel Island immigration records show some 500 Jews arrived on ships from Japan and China from 1939-40.

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One of the lesser known chapters in the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station concerns the arrival of Jewish refugees who left Nazi-held territories in 1939 and 1940.  Their journeys took them across Russia into China and Japan, where they boarded ships headed for San Francisco.  AIISF came upon this story because Alice Edelstein Steiner recounted her story to researchers in 2001.  Judy Yung and Erika Lee feature her family's story in the forthcoming book, Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America (Oxford University Press).

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Through his hard work and commitment to striving for the best in education, David Campos is now a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 9.  Yet, Mr. Campos came from humble beginnings. The following  article examines David’s life and journey from Guatemala to America as an undocumented immigrant and explores how his experiences shaped his views as Supervisor today.

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My grandmother Kanta Chandra was born in Delhi, India, in 1896, the oldest daughter and fourth child of six.  After the death of her parents and to avoid being sent to live with a dreadful uncle, five of the children decided to run away to America with what money their father had left them.  The only place they knew in the U.S. was San Francisco because their oldest brother had attended the University of California, Berkeley, a few years earlier.  To save money, they reported younger ages to secure tickets at children fare.  On a summer’s day in June 1910, they boarded a ship in Calcutta not knowing what they would find or where life would take them, just knowing that they wanted to stay together as a family.

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Internationally acclaimed actress/director Joan Chen (Chen Gong) immigrated to the U.S. at age 19 in 1981.  In this special article for AIISF, Joan Chen tells journalist William Wong about her years as a student in the U.S. and her early career as a Hollywood actress before her breakthrough in the Academy-award winning film, The Last Emperor.

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Imagine for a moment…  It is the ides of February 1926.  You are Chiu Yook Lon, an eighteen-year-old woman and a passenger on the Pacific Mail Steamship President Pierce, bound for San Francisco from Hong Kong.  The seas are rough, and you are seasick the entire twenty-eight day voyage -- a voyage destined to end in a ferryboat ride to a minimum-security prison on an island in San Francisco Bay. You have left your mother in Guangdong on a mission to find your father, who has not written home since 1909.  You are traveling with your “paper mom” and family friend, Chiu Wong Shee.  Together you are studying everything about Chiu Wong Shee:  her husband, Chiu Ming, a pharmacist and merchant living in Butte, Montana, and their four sons, the youngest to whom you have been promised in an arranged marriage.  The study papers are demanding in their requirement for precise and complementary answers to dozens of questions about your imagined home and family.  From the place where your grandparents are buried, to the number of oil lamps in your house in the village, to the placement of skylights in the roof of your home, to the north-south alignment of the various dwellings in the village, to the names and occupations of the men who carried your bags from your house to the riverboat in China -- you study those pages and rehearse them with your paper mom, and then somewhere past Hawaii you cast your study papers out to sea, committing your adopted past to memory, and your uncertain future to dreams…

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One hundred years after the Immigration Station opened, we are still uncovering bits and pieces of the Angel Island story.  The following poem, “A Night at the Immigration Station” by Choi Kyung Sik was found by researchers Charles Egan, a professor at San Francisco State University, and his assistant Jikyung Hwang as they went through back issues of the San Francisco-based Shinhan Minbo newspaper. Mr. Choi’s poem was published on April 25, 1925, and this English translation is by Jikyung Hwang and Charles Egan.

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