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Island 133

不料浮萍至墨京
寰球遍地已三年
青蚨不識無傷我
悶聽鎗林砲雨聲
故冒偷關來居美
誰知今日受囚刑

I did not expect to be drifting like duckweed to Mexico City.
I had been all over the world in three years.
Copper cash did not know me, but that did me no harm.
I was tired of listening to the fusillades of rifles and cannons,
So I risked stealing across the barrier to live in the United States.
Who was to know that today I would be punished with imprisonment?

Listen to the poem in Toishanese ⏯

Voices 20

家徒壁立棄鄉留
捨別妻親 [ 上 ] 洋舟
破浪乘風登墨處
望月鄉心敖家流

My house had nothing but bare walls, so I left my native place,
Abandoned wife and parents, and took ship across the sea.
After cleaving the waves and riding the wind, we arrived in Mexico;
As I gazed at the moon, my lonely heart wandered back home.

Listen to the poem 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.