Poems Tell of Lives in Limbo

Cold, damp barrack walls, weathered from years of neglect, stand as a reminder of the detainment center that housed thousands of Chinese during the early 1900s on this mountainous island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

Beneath layers of chipping gray paint, however, is a nearly forgotten piece of the human story -- one of longing, disappointment, fear and rage, etched as poems into the decaying wood panels by immigrants held for weeks or months during enforcement of Chinese exclusionary laws.

“I’m heartsick when I see my reflection, my handkerchief is soaked in tears,” reads one poem carved in Chinese characters on a first-floor wall. “I ask you, what crime did I commit to deserve this?”

This and dozens of other poems have been the focus of a $50-million, three-phase state parks restoration project underway at the Angel Island Immigration Station on the 470-acre island. A mix of federal, state and private money is funding the project.

Before work began in August, a team of scholars combed the station’s barracks and hospital, locating every visible piece of writing on the walls. It’s the first attempt at creating such a record, and scholars are using it to find out more about the life of detainees.

Until now, the most comprehensive account was the 1980 book “Island,” which published more than 100 Angel Island poems, said Charles Egan, a Chinese Studies professor at San Francisco State University and a lead scholar on the new project. But the collection, based on 1930s-era manuscripts by two detainees who reportedly copied poems off the walls, was never physically corroborated.

The project located most of those poems and found about 60 new ones.

Park contractors are restoring the station to the way it looked in the days when it was known as the Ellis Island of the West, the main gateway for immigrants crossing the Pacific. From 1910 until fire destroyed part of the station in 1940, it processed about 1 million immigrants, including 175,000 Chinese.

But unlike Ellis Island, where most immigrants stayed several hours, Angel Island held Chinese immigrants for an average of two or three weeks, some for nearly two years, as officials verified their immigration status.

Under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, laborers from China were not allowed to enter the United States. The law, the first one in U.S. history that targeted a specific ethnic group, was enacted in response to complaints about the influx of Chinese laborers, who had come to work on the railroads.

Exceptions to the law, repealed in 1943, were made for wives and children of American citizens, merchants, students, diplomats and tourists.

Historical accounts of life at the station showed great disparity between treatment of Asian and non-Asian immigrants, who were held in separate quarters. Asian detainees, housed in sections of the two-story barracks building that were meant to accommodate 100 but often held 500, were given substandard food, saltwater showers and limited recreation behind barbed-wire fences.

Views from triple-stacked bunks only hinted at the lush greenery and deep blue ocean just outside their confines. Detainees were kept on the north side of Angel Island, faced away from the bustling city that promised them so much opportunity.

Languishing from indefinite stays, prison-like quarters and grueling interrogations, many Chinese turned to poetry to vent.

“Poetry is much more central to Chinese culture than it might be to others,” Egan said. “Poetry was seen as a natural product of emotional experience, so there was always a premium placed on expressing yourself, especially in a time of high emotion.”

The poems suggest the writers were well-educated and well-organized, possibly working in “poetry clubs” that were selective about what became mural-like carvings on the wall, Egan said.

Homer Lee, who was 16 when he arrived at Angel Island in 1926, remembered seeing groups of older men, many of them schoolteachers, huddled together to discuss and display their poetry on the walls during his six-month detainment.

“They tell the truth of their lives and the future of their lives on the wall,” said Lee, 95, who lives in Berkeley and revisited the island last year.

Although scholars have debated the poets’ literary prowess, Egan said the richness of emotion displayed made the works worth studying.

“One thing you can’t fault any of the poems out there [for] is lack of feeling,” he said. “From that perspective, Angel Island poetry is very high-quality.”

Historian Judy Yung, a coauthor of “Island” who conducted oral histories of former detainees, said researchers had been unable to locate any of the poets. Unlike writings by detainees of other nationalities, most of the Chinese work was unsigned.

“There was a sense of secrecy and shame to what happened at Angel Island,” Yung said. “It doesn’t matter who wrote them, but that the poems speak certain truths and speak certain feelings that we all understand.”

Dismissed as graffiti by guards and officials at the time, the writings frequently were painted over, which obscured the writings until a park ranger rediscovered them in the 1970s. At the time, the dilapidated barracks were scheduled for demolition.

“That’s the reason why the building is still standing,” said park guide Casey Lee. “If there hadn’t been the writing in there, it probably would’ve been gone, and the stories wouldn’t be as powerful.”

The multiple coats of paint presented a challenge to restoration workers, who wanted to preserve the writings between the layers, said Roy McNamee, park superintendent.

“We can’t come in and repaint without the risk of destroying some of the resources; we can’t come in and strip the paint without destroying the resources,” McNamee said. “There’s not much we can do, so our goal in this venture is to do no harm.”

A protective coating probably will be sprayed to prevent further decay and protect visitors from the lead-based paint, he said.

The station will reopen to the public late next year after completion of the first phase of restoration, featuring a new exhibition with the scholars’ findings.

The exhibition spotlights the Chinese poetry, but it also includes writings from other Asian, Russian, South American and Middle Eastern immigrants who passed through the station, as well as World War II prisoners of war later held there.

Those writings were mainly just short messages and name inscriptions, but Egan said the diversity shown could help visitors understand the Angel Island experience as “a real American story out there that has a large resonance.”

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Words of sorrow

More than 150 poems have been found on the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station barracks. Here are texts of three poems found recently by scholars as part of the state parks restoration project:

It’s been a long time since I left my home village

Who could know I’d end up imprisoned in a wooden building?

I’m heartsick when I see my reflection, my handkerchief is soaked in tears

I ask you, what crime did I commit to deserve this?

Li Hai of Nancun, Taishan

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Dwelling in the wooden building, I give vent to despair

Searching for a living while perching on a mountain -- it’s hard to earn glory

Letters do not arrive, my thoughts in vain

In bitterness and sadness, I watch for my early release

-- Unsigned

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Clouds and hills all around, a single fresh color

Time slips away and cannot be recaptured

Although the feeling of spring is everywhere

How can we fulfill our heartfelt wish?

Unsigned

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Source: Associated Press

Los Angeles Times