Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

June 5, 2012

Dear Friends,

I’ve had the pleasure of working with you over the past four years as Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation. As I prepare to retire on June 30, 2012, I wanted to share some reflections on this part of my journey.  Working at AIISF has been a rewarding experience on so many levels.  First and foremost, we have made substantial progress in educating the public about this national symbol of Pacific immigration.  We reopened the Immigration Station Museum in February 2009 with gorgeous new exhibits designed by Dan Quan, including a new interpretive area on the grounds of the administration building.  We’ve created the elegant Immigrant Heritage Wall upon which hundreds of immigrant lives are honored for posterity.  We’ve stabilized the immigration station hospital, which was in danger of collapse.  The work can now begin to rehabilitate the hospital and create exhibition galleries, performance spaces, and meeting rooms. This will double the size of the present Immigration Station Museum.  I think that my father, who was deported from Angel Island as a 15-year old and came back a year later determined to better his life, would be proud that a place of shame has now become a site of conscience.

Eddie Wong, AIISF Executive Director, will retire at the end of its fiscal year ending June 30, 2012.  The Foundation plans to consider internal and external candidates to fill the executive director position and has hired CompassPoint Nonprofit Services to conduct the search.  Former board member Kathy Owyang Turner has agreed to step in as interim Executive Director during the search.

The Immigrant Heritage Wall is down to its last few open spaces. If you are interested, please contact Grant Din right away at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 415-262-4433. Thanks to all the families who are participating, and please save September 8 as the date for the dedication for the second phase of the wall!

by Lia Dun

“Angel Island: The Chinese-American Experience” is a graphic novel that seeks to make the experience of Chinese immigrants detained on Angel Island accessible to middle school students.  The teaching aide was developed by the Stanford Program on International and Cross-cultural Education, which develops multidisciplinary curriculum for K-14 students on international themes, as part of a unit on the Chinese American experience.  The graphic novel follows the story of a group of Chinese immigrants as they pass through Angel Island and describes the different aspects of life on Angel Island—the grueling interrogations, men being separated from women, medical inspections, and the often despairing poems carved on the barrack walls.