A Message From AIISF’s Executive Director

I hope that you are all enjoying the summer sun as well as the delicious fruits and vegetables of the season! It’s the perfect weather to enjoy a picnic out at the station. The picnic tables on the site are situated where the Asian Dining Room previously stood. You can learn more in this month’s Vault post (see below).

Thank you again to everyone who joined us on June 17 for Family Day! A huge thanks to AIISF Program Manager Danielle Wetmore, Event Chair Felicia Lowe, Shef, Angel Island State Park, Angel Island Tiburon Ferry, Golden Gate Ferry, Angel Island Company, Gina Longmire, our sponsors (Racyz Family Foundation, PG&E Corporation Foundation, Panda CommUnity Fund, and Walmart Foundation), our performers (LionDanceME, Duniya Dance & Drum Company, San Jose Taiko), and all the volunteers who helped make this event a success! We had over 1000 people out on the site. It was our largest event in several years, and we learned a lot about how to make next year’s event even more enjoyable. And a special shout out to Joël Tan and Cassie Chinn (Executive Director and Deputy Director, respectively) from the Wing Luke Museum who came down from Seattle, WA to attend the event.

We also want to express our gratitude to Pat Eng, Brandon Hadi, and the entire team at Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy for bringing over 160 leaders from across the country to Angel Island for the first day of their network convening. I personally appreciated the opportunity to connect with several long-time colleagues and to explore possible new partnerships.

Speaking of long-time colleagues, I also thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with Charles Kamasaki, Senior Advisor at UnidosUS during last month’s Author Spotlight. Charles was intricately involved in the Immigration Reform Act of 1986 and wrote a book about his experiences. He and I worked together for several years as part of a national racial equity collaborative funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

I spent the last week of June in DC for the final convening of my Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Fellowship. While there, I took the opportunity visit several of the Smithsonian museums. AIISF is proud to join the Task Force of the National Asian Pacific American History & Culture Initiative to support efforts to create a new museum in DC.

Have a wonderful July! (and don’t forget your sunscreen)

Edward Tepporn

AIISF Executive Director

New exhibit opening this week

Chinese Pioneers: Power and Politics in Exclusion Era Photographs

July 14 to September 3, 2023 | Immigration Station

Chinese Pioneers explores the social, political, and judicial disenfranchisement of Chinese Californians and moments of Chinese agency and resilience in the decades before and after the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

The exhibit examines how photography played an important role in Chinese people’s interactions with the dominant culture and the government’s fledgling registration, identification, and surveillance systems.

About

Chinese Pioneers is an exhibit by the California Historical Society and touring through Exhibit Envoy. Institutional support is provided by San Francisco Grants for the Arts and Yerba Buena Community Benefit District. The Henry Mayo Newhall Foundation supported the first 6 bookings of this exhibition.

THE VAULT: The Restaurant

This month, we explore the history of the Immigration Station's former restaurant. The facility played a central role in the daily lives of immigrants, officers, and the workers who fed and supported detainees between 1910 and 1940.

From food inequity and racial disparity to mutual aid networks and dining room protests, the restaurant is remembered through the personal experiences of those who passed through Angel Island as well as those who worked there.

Learn more about the restaurant here.

You can also discover other topics related to the Angel Island Island Immigration Station and its history on THE VAULT’s homepage.

Host our traveling exhibit

Taken From Their Families: Japanese American Incarceration on Angel Island During World War II explores the events and policies that led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war and presents stories from 24 individuals from Hawai`i and the West Coast whose lives were forever changed after December 7, 1941.

Learn more about hosting the exhibit HERE.

Event Recap: Author Spotlight with Charles Kamasaki on June 7

AIISF hosted our first in-person Author Spotlight event last month. Charles Kamasaki, author of The Immigration Act of 1986: The Corpse That Will Not Die, provided an insider’s perspective on the often-turbulent process of getting a bill passed into law. He shared first-hand stories about the discussions, debates, and debacles from the community organizing and advocacy efforts to secure comprehensive immigration reform in the 1980s.

The program recording can be viewed on our YouTube Channel HERE.

Event Recap: Angel Island and Ellis Island: Two Sides of the Immigration Story

Last month, AIISF also co-sponsored an in-person program in Washington, DC with The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, 1882 Foundation, Chinese Museum of DC, and several other organizations. AIISF Executive Director Edward Tepporn and Stephen Lean from the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation’s American Family Immigration Research Center shared details and stories about the immigration experience through the two islands that revealed the complex histories that the two islands share. Stephen noted that some immigrants experienced detention while Edward shared that for certain groups, Angel Island represented a pathway to escape persecution and violence.

The program recording can be viewed on 1882 Foundation’s YouTube Channel HERE.

AIISF Newsletter / July 2023