Reflection
Emily (Yeni) Yi
July 24, 2024, was a particularly warm and sunny day — the perfect day for a ferry ride. A group of history lovers in tennis shoes and backpacks full of snacks, we set sail to gather stories of the million or so immigrants who passed through Angel Island.
It was a short but beautiful coastal hike up to the Angel Island Immigration Museum (AIIM). The site-specific Hospital Exhibits and the intentional housing of its immigrant stories in the very spaces they walked through were powerful. The exhibition flow was also well executed: I walked somberly through Under the Microscope, gently took on the multi-generational grief of In the Shadows, and triumphed with the heroes of Opening Doors. Ending the experience with the story of Sammy Lee and his Olympic gold medals (particularly right before the Paris 2024 opening ceremonies) bridged our group from past to present as we stepped out into the sunlight to have lunch by the Bell.
After lunch, we began our guided tour of the Detention Barracks. Erin had specially requested Walter as our guide due to his breadth of knowledge, not just of Angel Island but of the Bay Area as a whole. He was a fantastic storyteller, braiding history with stories he’d collected along with his own anecdotes. We walked through empty, skeletal rooms to see the remnants of poems, words, and graffiti etched into the walls (though tactilely exploring the engraved lettering, I learned, was not a kinesthetic learning opportunity — the guide warned us that the characteristic green under layers of paint was lead-based, and I sheepishly stopped tracing the walls with my fingers). Other rooms had models of beds and items staged to look lived-in, with belongings crammed onto small beds in the cramped rooms.
We wrapped up the day ruminating on our experiences on the ferry back to San Francisco, where Russ Lowe shared his father’s Angel Island stories through a series of incredible documents. Russ had been traveling to China to map his father’s biography and unravel the intricate thread of Paper Sons and real families for the past several decades; now flipping through the copies of his father’s paperwork, looking at photos of him, and then seeing Russ standing before us felt like living history. It was a magical conclusion to the day.
I am filled with awe, lingering grief, and gratitude for the way the day was facilitated; weaving emotions and real-life accounts into historical narratives brought Angel Island to life in a way that I’d never experienced before. It was my first time on the island, and definitely not my last — I hope to bring my students so they too can wrap themselves in the complex tapestry of emotions and weigh the dialogical push and pull of past, present, and future.
Emily (Yeni) Yi
July 24, 2024, was a particularly warm and sunny day — the perfect day for a ferry ride. A group of history lovers in tennis shoes and backpacks full of snacks, we set sail to gather stories of the million or so immigrants who passed through Angel Island.
It was a short but beautiful coastal hike up to the Angel Island Immigration Museum (AIIM). The site-specific Hospital Exhibits and the intentional housing of its immigrant stories in the very spaces they walked through were powerful. The exhibition flow was also well executed: I walked somberly through Under the Microscope, gently took on the multi-generational grief of In the Shadows, and triumphed with the heroes of Opening Doors. Ending the experience with the story of Sammy Lee and his Olympic gold medals (particularly right before the Paris 2024 opening ceremonies) bridged our group from past to present as we stepped out into the sunlight to have lunch by the Bell.
After lunch, we began our guided tour of the Detention Barracks. Erin had specially requested Walter as our guide due to his breadth of knowledge, not just of Angel Island but of the Bay Area as a whole. He was a fantastic storyteller, braiding history with stories he’d collected along with his own anecdotes. We walked through empty, skeletal rooms to see the remnants of poems, words, and graffiti etched into the walls (though tactilely exploring the engraved lettering, I learned, was not a kinesthetic learning opportunity — the guide warned us that the characteristic green under layers of paint was lead-based, and I sheepishly stopped tracing the walls with my fingers). Other rooms had models of beds and items staged to look lived-in, with belongings crammed onto small beds in the cramped rooms.
We wrapped up the day ruminating on our experiences on the ferry back to San Francisco, where Russ Lowe shared his father’s Angel Island stories through a series of incredible documents. Russ had been traveling to China to map his father’s biography and unravel the intricate thread of Paper Sons and real families for the past several decades; now flipping through the copies of his father’s paperwork, looking at photos of him, and then seeing Russ standing before us felt like living history. It was a magical conclusion to the day.
I am filled with awe, lingering grief, and gratitude for the way the day was facilitated; weaving emotions and real-life accounts into historical narratives brought Angel Island to life in a way that I’d never experienced before. It was my first time on the island, and definitely not my last — I hope to bring my students so they too can wrap themselves in the complex tapestry of emotions and weigh the dialogical push and pull of past, present, and future.