Angel Island – Immigration Center of the West

Angel Island (Horseshoe Bay in foreground)

Angel Island State Park - Ayala Cove

Historic Quarantine Station and Current Visitor Center - Ayala Cove 

Immigration Station Barracks - China Cove, Angel Island

Muli-tiered Bunks, Immigration Barracks - China Cove

Immigration Station - China Cove, Angel Island

We spent the day on Angel Island after motoring our dinghy across Richardson Bay from Sausalito. Angel Island State Park is located off the peninsula of Tiburon and is definitely a must see in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Not only did we find it a most beautiful island with wonderful views of the greater Bay Area, but also found it to be rich in history including its role as a U.S. Immigration Center.  We tied our dinghy to the guest dock in Ayala Cove and walked up to the Quarantine Station (1891-1946) office building, which now houses the Angel Island Visitor Center & Museum.  The Quarantine Station was established to isolate people with contagious diseases and included more than 40 buildings, four of which remain today.  As years passed, use of quarantine stations diminished due to improved medical examinations and practices.  From Ayala Cove, we began our 9-mile walk around the Island stopping at the Immigration Center (1910-1940) in China Cove.  It was here that the Chinese immigrants arrived after their long journey at sea.  The center was designed to process Chinese immigrants whose entry was restricted by the Chinese Exclusion Law of 1882 and included a hospital, administration building, housing for employees, and barracks for detained immigrants.  Japanese and Europeans were also processed through this center but more than 97 percent of the immigrants processed on Angel Island were Chinese.  For 30 years, this was the point of entry for most of the approximately 175,000 Chinese immigrants who came to the United States.  An economic downturn in the late 1800’s resulted in serious unemployment problems and led to outcries against Asian immigrants who worked for cheap wages.  Restrictive immigration laws allowed entry only to those Chinese that had been born in the U.S. or had husbands or fathers who were already citizens.  As a result, these “fathers” would sell papers to other Chinese identifying them as a wife or child.  Immigration officers asked tough questions; and if detainee’s answers did not match the “father’s,” he or she could be ordered deported so “fathers” began including a list of questions and answers for immigrants to memorize before their arrival.  For most nationalities, the stay on Angel Island typically lasted two to three days.  The Chinese Exclusion Act, however, resulted in intense interrogation and an appeal process that took weeks, and in some cases, up to two years.  Living conditions at the barracks were crowded, ventilation was poor, and the restrooms were filthy.  Rows of multi-tiered bunks filled the barracks providing little to no privacy.  The compound was enclosed with a barbed-wire fence and guarded by two gun towers.  The Chinese naturally lamented their fate and expressed their hopes and emotions through poetry carved into the walls of the barracks; many of these carvings are still seen on the walls today.  After the administration building burned in 1940, the Station was closed and all immigrants were moved to San Francisco.  The so-called “Chinese Exclusion acts” were eventually repealed.  The buildings remaining on Angel Island were taken over by the Army during World War II to house German, Japanese, and Italian POWs in the barracks.  These prisoners also left to posterity their writings on the walls.

Chinese Poem on Walls of Barracks - China Cove

Hospital Viewed Through Barrack Windows - China Cove

Site of Wharf at Immigration Station - China Cove