Island

Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940

By: Genny Lim (Editor), Judy Yung (Editor), Him Mark Lai (Editor)

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Paperback | 1 October 2014 | Edition Number 2

At a Glance

Paperback
384 Pages

Edition Type
Revised

Age
22+

Dimensions(cm)
20.8 x 25.5 x 2.6

Paperback

RRP $57.25

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In the early twentieth century, most Chinese immigrants coming to the United States were detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. There, they were subject to physical exams, interrogations, and often long detentions aimed at upholding the exclusion laws that kept Chinese out of the country. Many detainees recorded their anger and frustrations, hopes and despair in poetry written and carved on the barrack walls.

Island tells these immigrants' stories while underscoring their relevance to contemporary immigration issues. First published in 1980, this book is now offered in an updated, expanded edition including a new historical introduction, 150 annotated poems in Chinese and English translation, extensive profiles of immigrants gleaned through oral histories, and dozens of new photographs from public archives and family albums.

An important historical document as well as a significant work of literature, Island is a testament to the hardships Chinese immigrants endured on Angel Island, their perseverance, and their determination to make a new life in America.

Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7kJscWIaM

Industry Reviews

During the time they spent on the island, as little as a few days, as long as three years, [immigrants] carved and ink brushed their concerns onto the walls of their barracks. One hundred thirty-five calligraphic poems survived, first discovered by a Federal park ranger after Angel Island was abandoned in 1940. Together with the interviews, the poems - angry, heroic, wrenchingly forlorn, despairing, provocative, resistant - convey, as no secondhand or thirdhand account could ever do, what it was like to be Chinese and to be on Angel Island.

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