January 3, 2023

Hearing the stories from descendants of Chinese immigrants was both eye-opening and emotional for students who participated in a four-week summer program that explored early Chinese immigration to the United States through a visit to and study of Angel Island, an immigration station in San Francisco Bay that was in operation from 1910-1940.

Weihong Du, associate professor of Asian studies, led a group of seven students on a two-week trip to the San Francisco area this past summer with the support of a National Endowment for the Humanities-sponsored program, “Local Contexts, Global Connections: Revitalizing Immersive Cultural and Language Study at Home.”

The program adopted a variety of approaches to learning and culminated in writing projects that help preserve the oral histories from interviews of some of the immigrant families that came to the United States through the immigration station. These writing projects have been submitted and accepted for publication on the Angel Island Immigration Station’s official website, and included on the “Roots on Angel Island” project website. (read more)