The Angel Island Immigration Station was established to help enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Nestled in North San Francisco Bay, it operated from 1910 to 1940.
After arriving at the Immigration Station, I stood where the wharf once stood and gazed out at the bay. After weeks of sailing, the immigrants poured off the ship onto land. Finally feeling the solid earth beneath their feet, the imposing buildings of the immigration station greeted them, as well as the officers whose job it was to screen the Chinese immigrants.
My heart fluttered as I thought about the little Asian lady whose first stop was here where she would wait, hoping to join the husband she had married months earlier in China.
Alone she walked down the plank. Alone she faced interrogation in a foreign language. Alone she gazed out across the bay probably not even aware that she could not even see the distant shores of her new home, San Francisco.
The administration office would have been her first stop. Afterwards, she would have climbed the steep stairs to the barracks carrying all her belongings in a small suitcase.
Fred and I too began our walk at the wharf, though the adminstration building burned to the ground in 1940, so we saw the foudation footings that were creatively replaced by the park.
The tour began here, and then we walked to the immigration station barraks (in the background) where the immigrants stayed. A daunting flight of stairs greeted us. Fred could not climb that many steep stairs, so I asked about handicap accessibility. There was a wheel chair ramp that zigzaged up the hillside, but there was no wheelchair to borrow and the path was too long in its design to be accessible either.
Fred stood at the bottom of the stairs unable to to take the tour. Ironically, one hundred years ago his mother climbed those stairs...unable to join her husband in San Francisco. I wanted to cry.
Sleeping quarters.
Interrogation room.
Meticulously carved poetry on the walls. Words of hope. Words of despair. Words painted over by the army during WWII.
As Fred and I sat in the warm sun waiting for our ferry to take us home, a gracious Chinese lady introduced herself to Fred and me. Immediately she expressed her acute disappointment that Fred had not been able to take the tour. She understood the significance of our trip, as she too was exploring the Chinese history in San Francisco on her visit to the city.
Her visit had revealed new history to her about her family, information that made her face glow in utter delight.
The respect she had for Fred brought a warm smile to his face. I love the respect the Chinese have for their elders.
She shared that never knew her grandparents. Nor did Fred.
Soon I could hear them sharing the locations of their villages in China. I smiled.
Fred was delighted to meet her. He chatted readily. His eyes twinkled. His heart opened.
When we boarded the ship back, he chose to sit with our new friend and the banter never ceased.
Though Fred was not able to tour the barracks, I know the moments he shared with his new friend more valuable to him. Though strangers on one level, an unknown history bound them. The emotion welled in my heart as I listened to their connection of the heart.
As Fred's mother stood on the dock that day I wonder what she thought. I wonder if she ever imagined that 100 years later her son would stand there, an old man, and meet a new friend...another woman who ventured to America with her family as a little girl. I wonder if her heart was squeezed as tightly as mine--flooded with the emotions of dreams, fear, hope, rejection that I could still hear in the voices today.
I can almost feel the courage Fred's mother found in a her heart to face the challenges before her...and with the positive energy her son so fondly remembers.
