“What Ellis Island symbolizes to Americans of European heritage who immigrated to the East Coast, Angel Island symbolizes to Americans of Asian heritage on the West Coast.”

Here, we’re taking the Angel Island page for the federal government’s National Historic Landmarks Program as an official text of the site. What’s interesting to observe in the “Statement of Significance” is the notion of why we designate a site as important to our national history in the first place. The page describes the island as the major “West Coast processing center for immigrants from 1910-1940.”¹ The above quote deceptively connects Angel Island with Ellis Island, a place of welcome where immigrants spent mere days compared to the weeks, months, and years detainees were held in Angel Island.

Noticeably absent on the page is any mention of the station as a place of imprisonment, where immigrants were subject to brutal interrogations and forcibly locked up, some never even making it to see this supposed land of opportunity whether they died or were deported. The preservation of the Angel Island Immigration Station is crucial to reminding ourselves of a shameful moment in United States history. Yet, we cannot overlook how the very way we are preserving its history continues to be tied up with the same forces that made Angel Island a site of blatant racial discrimination, xenophobia, and prejudice.

By Samantha Ching

1 “United States Immigration Station Foundation, Angel Island.” National Historic Landmarks Program. U.S. National Park Service. Web. 17 Mar 2014