Gateway to Gold Mountain chronicles the immigration experience of more than 175,000 Chinese immigrants who came to America through the Angel Island between 1910 and 1940. These Chinese immigrants were ferried from ships to the isolated Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay, and were greeted by an America far different from the land of opportunity many called “Gold Mountain.”
This traveling exhibition discussed the hopes and fears of the Chinese immigrants, as well as the discrimination they were confronted with while trying to gain entry to America.
Gateway to Gold Mountain chronicles the Angel Island experience with photomurals that depict the day-to-day life on Angel Island, and life-size photographic cut-outs show how Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean and Jewish immigrants were all part of the station’s history.
Visitors walked through a series of vignettes that represented a particular experience at the immigration station. For example, they saw the images of what the immigrants saw upon arrival: the barbed wire fences, guard towers, and locked doors. Processing and questioning of new arrivals took weeks and sometimes months—and, in a number of cases, even years. The despair and isolation felt by the immigrants was revealed in poems they carved into the walls of barracks on Angel Island. Many of the poems were translated for this exhibition.
Gateway to Gold Mountain was a tribute to the pioneering spirit of all those who persevered in establishing new roots in the United States and laying the groundwork for later Asian immigrants. This exhibition was designed by the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, a non-profit organization founded more than 20 years ago by citizens committed to preserving the deteriorating immigration station barracks. Angel Island is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Gateway to Gold Mountain was hosted by the Smithsonian’s Arts & Industries Building from July 9- August 27, 2001. For more information, visit: www.apa.si.edu
Disclaimer: This is not an official blog of the Smithsonian Group nor I am associated with them.
Tags: Asia Pacific Americans
