Located in San Francisco Bay, Angel Island has been used for a variety of purposes, including military forts, a US Public Health Service Quarantine Station, and a US Bureau of Immigration inspection and detention facility, pictured. Courtesy the Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

An imposing prison building built into a hill with a long staircase leading up to it

The dormitory at Angel Island Immigration Station Detention Center. The station opened in 1910 and was decommissioned in 1946. Photo: Kate Lee Brown 

The interior of a dormitory like room with 3 level metal frame bunk beds set on a wooden floor

Inside the Angel Island Immigration Station. Courtesy Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

The interior of a sparse room with sun coming through a window

At the Angel Island Immigration Station, poetry carved into the walls of a former detainment center preserves a past that was almost forgotten.

Angel Island Immigration Station

Poem 69 is one of the 200 poems carved by Chinese immigrants in the walls of the detention barracks at Angel Island Immigration Station. The authors of the poems are largely unknown.

Chinese letters carved into wood

To “Feel” History: Angel Island Immigration Station 

Artists as Catalysts

Artists as Catalysts Navigation Image

Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Borderlands Cultures

In portrait orientation, an aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Power of the Word

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 

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