What is the U.S. Immigration Station at Angel Island?
Located in San Francisco Bay, the U.S. Immigration Station at Angel Island served as a processing and detainment center for hundreds of thousands of immigrants and emigrants between 1910 and 1940. Arrivals included people from China, Japan, Russia, India, Korea, Australia, and the Philippines. Angel Island detainees experienced overcrowded facilities, humiliating medical examinations, intense interrogations, and countless days (sometimes months and even years) of waiting at the Immigration Station pending either approval of their applications or deportation. Today, the Immigration Station’s unique feature is the Chinese poetry etched into the walls of the barracks speaking of the detainees’ sadness and isolation. In 1997, Angel Island Immigration Station became a National Historic Landmark. It is one of only two sites related to Asian American history (the other is the Japanese American Internment Camp Manzanar) that hold national landmark status.
