Voices of Angel Island - by Charles Egan (Paperback)

About the Book

"An annotated anthology of poems and prose inscribed on the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station and published in ethnic newspapers, describing the experiences of Asian immigrants "becoming American.""--

Book Synopsis

Voices of Angel Island is a historical and literary anthology of the writings of immigrants detained at Angel Island, designed to provide a conduit for readers today to connect with early-20th-century perspectives on the process of "becoming American."

The Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay has been called the "Ellis Island of the West," but its purpose was quite different. It was primarily a detention center, established in large part to discourage immigration by Asians. The station barracks contain an extraordinary archive: hundreds of poems and prose records in half a dozen languages are on the walls, inscribed by immigrant detainees between 1910 and 1940, and by POWs and "enemy aliens" during World War II. Charles Egan draws on over a decade's work deciphering the wall inscriptions by Japanese, Chinese, Korean, European, and other detainees to assemble a selection of their writings in this book, alongside literary materials from Bay Area ethnic newspapers. While each inscription tells the story of an individual, taken together they illuminate the historical, economic, and cultural forces that shaped the lives of ordinary people in the early 20th century.

Review Quotes

"[Voices of Angel Island] is thoroughly researched, providing fascinating insights into the lives of many of the writers from Asia and Europe who left their marks on Angel Island. ... Due to his work as an advisor on the renovations in the immigration station, Egan also had access to writings which are no longer viewable by the public. ... Voices is an invaluable addition to literature on immigration and Asian American and Japanese American history, in the words of those who lived through it." --Grant Din, Nichibei Times

"Voices of Angel Island is a revelatory study of detention in America. By capturing the inscriptions, graffiti, and poetry of detainees on Angel Island, Charles Egan has produced a rare multi-lingual, multi-ethnic history from below." --Beth Lew-Williams, Associate Professor of History, Princeton University, USA, and author of The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America (2018)

"Voices of Angel Island brings the voices of unwanted early-20th-century Asian and Russian immigrants to the forefront of the history of modern America. Charles Egan masterfully combines the anthology of migrant poetry and inscriptions from the walls of Angel Island's detention facilities with archival and oral histories to create a visceral and intimate portrait of the politics and experiences of immigration in America." --Elena Barabantseva, Senior Lecturer in Chinese International Politics, University of Manchester, UK, and author of Overseas Chinese, Ethnic Minorities and Nationalism: De-Centering China (2012)

About the Author

Charles Egan is Professor of Chinese at San Francisco State University, USA. He is the author of Clouds Thick, Whereabouts Unknown: Poems by Zen Monks of China, which was awarded the 2011 Lucien Stryk Prize in Asian Translation by the American Literary Translators Association.