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Voices 40

此人金山
二十二天
知我無銀
不得住墨
諸君提防

I’ve been here at Gold Mountain
For twenty-two days.
Know that because I have no money,
I cannot live in Mexico.
Everyone be careful.

Listen to the poem in Cantonese ⏯

Voices 38

趙子龍一身是膽

先問客棧往墨方
任揭銀兩若如何
真否時聞應是假
可到美國又 [ 無 ] 銀
強蠻醫生又種痘
惡種牛 [ 菜 ] 食三 [ 餐 ]
眾人看過真可惜
仍係家貧出外洋

民國捨年三月初二鐵城 [ 流 ] 口口口

General Zhao Zilong’s Whole Body was Courage

I first asked the innkeeper, to get to Mexico,
Need I borrow many silver taels?
Is it true what I heard then? I think not!
He said I could go to America without any money.
Cruel barbarian doctors give us smallpox shots;
Nasty cow thistles are served three meals a day.
Everyone has seen this—how pitiful it is.
Yet our families are poor, so we cross the foreign seas.

By a Wanderer from the City of Iron
March 2, 1921

Listen to the poem in Heungshan (Shekki, Long Du) ⏯

Voices 42

諸君
世界金錢

For everyone
World money

Listen to the inscription in Cantonese ⏯

Voices 33

環山河塗

民國十年三月二十四日搭南京到刻

Surrounded by mountains and tidal shores.

Inscribed by a passenger who arrived on the SS Nanking
24th day of the 3rd month, Year 10 of the Republic

Listen to the inscription in Cantonese ⏯

Island 67

黄家子弟本香城
挺身投筆赴美京
買棹到了金山地
誰知授我過埃崙
我國圖強無比樣
船泊岸邊直可登

民國十三廿肆晨
逍遙子鐵城閒筆

I am a member of the Wong clan from Heung City.
I threw away my writing brush and pushed forward, journeying to the capital of the U.S.
I bought an oar and arrived in the land of Gold Mountain.
Who was to know they would banish me to Island?
If my country had contrived to make herself strong, this never would have happened.
Then when the ship had docked, we could have gone directly ashore.

Dawn of the 24th, in the thirteenth year of the Republic
Idle brushstrokes of a wanderer from the Town of Iron

Listen to the poem in Heungshan (Shekki, Long Du) ⏯

Voices 41

行船 [ 的 ] 人
到來花旗
不用分文

Sailors on board ships
Come to the land of the Flowery Flag
Without paying a penny.

Listen to the inscription in Cantonese ⏯

Translations:
Egan, Charles. Voices of Angel Island: Inscriptions and Immigrant Poetry, 1910-1945. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
Lai, H. Mark, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung, eds. Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940. Second edition. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2014.