Why Chinese immigrants were incarcerated on Angel Island | Bartell's Backroads (ABC10)

Just off the Point of Tiburon in the San Francisco Bay, there’s an old barracks full of dark stories. They’re stories of ill-treatment and unnecessary incarceration. The words aren’t written on paper, but carved on wooden walls, only to be painted over many times. The stories are those of men, women, and children waiting to leave the Angel Island Immigration Station. Today, Angel Island is managed by California State Parks, but from 1910 to 1940, the federal government detained thousands of immigrants at that location.

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Russell Nauman
The 40 best California outdoor experiences. Period (Los Angeles Times)

This is the California we’ve been pining for — 40 summer destinations that call to us loudly in good times and bad. If you’re getting to know California, these 40 are great places to begin. But we’ve tried to make this list more than a starter kit. Even if you’re an old hand, there will be destinations that you’ve missed, and I’ve added a pro tip to every destination. Now let’s get back on the road.

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Russell Nauman
It Is Time to Include AANHPIs In Museum Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Efforts (AAM)

Over the past year, we have all witnessed the increasing acts of hate and violence against Asian Americans, particularly against women and the elderly. Some have tried to cast these incidents as a new trend. Yet, for those of us who identify as part of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) diaspora, we are quite familiar with the longstanding discrimination and violence experienced by our communities.

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Russell Nauman
Angel Island and Asian immigration are forever linked: Let's not forget the writings on the wall (San Francisco Chronicle)

I never met my grandfather, Lui Lee. First name Lee. Last name Lui. He came to the United States as a teenager, having grown up as a poor farmer in Southern China. His family saved up money so their son could go to the golden mountain — America. When he passed through the foggy Golden Gate strait of San Francisco on the SS Asia in the early 1900s — the big red bridge wouldn’t be built until decades later — just the choppy, cold waters of the bay greeted him. He hit landfall at the U.S. Immigration Station at Angel Island.

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Russell Nauman
Ferry to Angel Island Provides a Direct Route to History (San Francisco Examiner)

Under the lush, rolling hills and waterfront views of Angel Island lies a history less suitable for photos: the story of thousands of immigrants, many of them arriving from China, who were detained and often subjected to traumatizing treatment on their journey to the United States. That history is set to become less accessible, local history experts and advocates say, with the proposed termination of the ferry route from San Francisco to Angel Island from Blue & Gold Fleet.

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Russell Nauman
The Long Reads You May Have Missed This Year (KQED)

Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay draws sightseers and hikers to its picturesque shores but, until very recently, its darker history of Japanese internment history eluded even the island’s park rangers and tour guides. This Bay Curious story reveals how 700 West Coast Japanese residents, mostly from Hawaii, were interned here in the early 1940s, and how one family's own history intertwines with this place's secrets.

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Russell Nauman
Imprisoned in this Wooden Building (Napa Valley Register)

New Tech High School teacher Nancy Hale explains, “In Ethnic Studies (an English class of students from 10th-12th grades) we studied the treatment of Chinese immigrating to the United States. We read some of the poems of the Chinese who were imprisoned on Angel Island awaiting their fate in the wonderful book ‘Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island 1910-1940’”

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Russell Nauman