Film recommendations

Carved in Silence

“Carved in Silence”, a 45-minute documentary about the Chinese experience of detention at Angel Island Immigration Station. Video can be purchased through Lowedown Productions. Click on link for Carved in Silence Transcript.

Island of Secret Memories

Loni Ding’s 20-minute film Island of Secret Memories tells the story about a Chinese American schoolboy who visits Angel Island Immigration Station and learns about the experience of his grandfather’s stay there. This is a good resource for introducing elementary students to this material. To order visit: http://www.cetel.org/order.html

"Paper Sons": Chinese American illegal immigrants

CNN Headline News anchor Richard Lui reports on "Paper Sons and Daughters," a group of Chinese immigrants that bought fake papers and claimed to be the children of legal U.S. citizens in order to skirt the Chinese Exclusion Act. His report looks into studies that show one third of today's current Chinese American population are descendants or are actual "paper sons or daughters" today.

Angel of No Mercy – Saving the Angel Island Immigration Station Circa 1976, 10 min video by Christopher Chow

This documentary film shows the Angel Island U.S. Immigration Station Detention Barracks circa 1975-76, before it was saved from demolition (for conversion into a picnic ground in the China Cove area of North Garrison, as had been proposed by some planners in the California Department of Parks and Recreation). Pursuant to an Legislative Resolution authored by Assemblyman John F. Foran, the Angel Island Immigration Station Historical Advisory Committee, chaired by Christopher Chow, issued a Report and Recommendations to the State of California urging immediate protection, preservation, restoration and interpretation of the existing site, structures and poetry carved and written thereon. Soon after the KGO-TV broadcast of this film, the State of California began work on stabilizing the Detention Barracks and preserving evidence of the thousands of immigrants who came through Angel Island to this land of the free and home of the brave. Through the efforts of the successor Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and its public partners, the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the U.S. National Park Service and National Historic Trust, this National Historic Landmark and Visitor Center is now open to the public.

Virtual Tour of Angel Island Immigration Station Through the Eyes of Dan Quan

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation Presents a tour of the historical venue that processed tens of thousands of immigrants traveling across the Pacific from 1910-1940.

Reenactment Drama and Immigration Panel Now Online

On April 30, actors reenacted a series of interrogations of Chinese immigrants that took place on Angel Island in the early 20th century. See the drama with actors in period costumes, and a discussion on Angel Island immigration history and its relevance to what undocumented students face today here. The heart of the drama is directly from the transcripts, on file at the National Archives at San Francisco, of Leung Shee and her husband Quon Quock Wah, who were trying to immigrate to the US in 1913. Special thanks to actors Vicky Lee, Bob Barde, Chris Yu Gaoiran, and narrator Daniel Nealand.

KQED Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems

From 1910 to 1940, tens of thousands of immigrants entered the United States through the West Coast's Angel Island Immigration Station. Located in San Francisco's north bay, not far from Alcatraz Island, the buildings were nearly forgotten and their history practically lost, until one day Alexander Weiss, a California State Park Ranger, re-discovered them in 1970. His chance discovery began the long journey to save the Immigration Station, and ultimately, to save the stories hidden within it, and to help us remember its sad, but important role in American history.

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Educational Videos