Mosaic - Russian Immigrants
Approximately 8,000 Russians passed through Angel Island between 1910 and 1940. They included Jews, Baptists, Molokans, and Mennonites who were fleeing religious persecution and military service, people seeking better economic opportunities and those fleeing political persecution under the new Soviet regime. For them, class, nationality, and political convictions, but not race, were the main criteria for exclusion.
Large numbers of Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian Jews began arriving at Angel Island in 1915. They were mainly men who had left their homes to escape the turmoil of war and military duty. Most of them had to travel through Siberia to Harbin or Shanghai, then across the Pacific. Jewish women and children fleeing the war in Russia began arriving in 1917 and 1918 to join family members mainly on the East Coast. Some were excluded because of a new literacy clause in the 1917 Immigration Act intended to curb the new immigration from Eastern Europe and exclude South Asians.
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