orientallyyours:In the early twentieth century, most Chinese immigrants coming to the United States
orientallyyours:In the early twentieth century, most Chinese immigrants coming to the United States were detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay. There, they were subject to physical exams, interrogations, and often long detentions aimed at upholding the exclusion laws that kept Chinese out of the country. Many detainees recorded their anger and frustrations, hopes and despair in poetry written and carved on the barrack walls.Poem 135 (image 2), etched into the walls of a lavatory room on the first floor of the detention barracks, and was written by a Chinese Mexican waiting to be deported to China in the early 1930s:Detained in this wooden house for several tens of days,It is all because of the Mexican exclusion law that implicates me.It’s a pity heroes have no way of exercising their prowess.I can only await the word so that I can snap Zu’s whip.From now on, I am departing far from this building.All of my fellow villagers are rejoicing with me.Don’t say that everything within is Western style.Even if it is built of jade, it has turned into a cage.Sources: University of Washington Press, KCET -- source link