Angel Island, The AALS Field Trip

Today, prawfs (not just immprofs!) walked across San Francisco and sailed across its waters to visit Angel Island. Our beloved Rose Cuison Villazor and Huyen Pham organized the adventure and arranged for a guided tour of the island’s Immigration Station.

Angel Island served as an immigration detention facility from 1910 to 1940. People stayed an average of 2 to 3 days, though the longest resident of the facility was detained for a whopping 22 months.

We saw the small and fully enclosed outdoor recreation yard and a large room that housed men in rows of 6-bed bunks.

We also saw the walls, carved with poems from Angel Island’s detainees who wrote with such emotion about their detention. One said:

Grief and bitterness entwined are heaven sent / The sad person sits alone, leaning by a window

Another:

At times I gaze at the cloud- and fog-enshrouded mountain-front. / It only deepens my sadness.

Touring the facility, it was easy to understand that overwhelming desperation and grief. For detainees may have had views of beautiful mountains and water, but it was always seen through fenced windows and barbed wire enclosures.

Angel Island was, in the words of our interpreter, “built to keep people out” and to “enforc[e] racist laws.” Even the doctors on site to care for detained migrants served a dual role of not just treating the ill but looking for medical reasons to justify their deportation. 

It was a genuine treat to see a place of such historical importance. I encourage anyone traveling through San Francisco to arrange their own tour of the Immigration Station.

-KitJ