Not just oppression: Lessons from one state on how schools can get Asian American history right

Dozens of Illinois teachers watched the ranger in a recorded video. They had gathered over Zoom to learn about how they could incorporate Angel Island and other key elements of Asian American history into their lessons. It was part of a university-led training meant to help Illinois teachers comply with a three-year-old, first-in-the-nation law that requires schools statewide to teach at least one unit of Asian American history.

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Hannah Schoenberger
10 outdoor sites to learn more about Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage (Albuquerque Journal)

Stacker used information from the National Park Service and other sources to compile a list of historical sites, like 'Iolani Palace and Angel Island, where you can learn more about Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage. This is by no means a comprehensive list; instead, you can use it as a starting point to find even more heritage sites like Kaunolu Village and Morro Bay.

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Hannah Schoenberger
‘Love Revolution:’ Valarie Kaur and the importance of love and forgiveness in a hateful world (The Daily Campus)

Kaur shared that the ancestor she was envisioning was her grandfather from 110 years ago when he immigrated from India to Angel Island in California in hopes of a better life as a farmer. Kaur explained that Angel Island’s purpose was to incarcerate, detain and deport as many Asian immigrants as possible. She said that South Asians were the least desirable race to the immigration officials at Angel Island. 

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Hannah Schoenberger
Berkeley play looks back at era when U.S. government blocked Chinese immigrants (Mercury News)

Suh’s new play “The Far Country,” now getting its West Coast premiere in Berkeley, explores some of the far-reaching impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act on immigrant families. Set in 1909 in the wake of the San Francisco Earthquake, the play deals with the phenomenon of what’s sometimes called “paper sons,” immigrants with forged documents establishing them as children of U.S. citizens.

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Hannah Schoenberger
Berkeley Rep actors set sail on a field trip to prepare for a play about Angel Island (SF Chronicle)

“Don’t touch the walls,” Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation Executive Director Ed Tepporn said. “They’re historic. There’s also lead paint in them.”

He was addressing the cast and creative team of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s “The Far Country,” which is set partly on Angel Island in the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act. On a brisk winter day, with dramatic clouds threatening rain, the theater artists were making an unusual field trip, riding a ferry to the island where a half-million emigrants, the majority from Asia, were processed from 1910 to 1940. 

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Hannah Schoenberger
The Best Free Museums in San Francisco to Visit This Year (Inside Hook)

While New York’s Ellis Island is forever etched in American history for being the busiest immigration processing station in the country, Angel Island served a similar role on the West Coast. In fact, between 1910 and 1940, more than 500,000 immigrants passed through the tiny island just off the coast of the city in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. The free-to-visit Angel Island Immigration Station is a living landmark of that experience. What’s more, you can get to Angel Island by riding the Golden Gate Ferry from the Embarcadero, which passes by Alcatraz and looks out at both the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge. 

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Hannah Schoenberger
Oakland Ballet to Present Third Annual Dancing Moons Festival This Spring (Broadway World)

Oakland Ballet Company's 2023-24 Season will continue in March with the third annual DANCING MOONS FESTIVAL, a celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander choreographers. The highlight this year will be the preview of a major new work inspired by the lives of detainees at Angel Island, the United States' main immigration facility on the West Coast from 1910 to 1940.

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Hannah Schoenberger
Historic Julia Morgan cottages on Angel Island to be rebuilt (The Ark)

In 1971, firefighters deliberately torched 12 small cottages at the Angel Island Immigration Station as part of a training exercise. No one seemed to care that the cottages had been designed by renowned California architect Julia Morgan. The cottages burned to the ground with only their cement foundations remaining.

Now Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation officials have secured a $1-million state grant to rebuild two of the free-standing cottages using Morgan’s surviving drawings.

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Hannah Schoenberger