We continue touring California’s islands with a visit to Angel Island, a state park that’s also part of the Bay Area’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Now is a perfect time to visit Angel Island, given the political dramas being staged along the southern U.S. border and their wrenching human consequences. This is hardly the first time in U.S. history that nativist sentiments have reached fevered political pitch. Something quite similar once happened here, at a facility still sometimes known as the “Ellis Island of the West.”
At the turn of the 20th century Angel Island was the door through which Asian immigrants passed on their way to America—or tried to pass.
Construction of a United States Immigration Station began in Angel Island’s China Cove in 1905. Primarily a detention center, the facility was intended to control the flow of Chinese into the country, in keeping with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Though the Chinese had been in California since 1848, anti-Chinese laws quickly forced them out of the gold fields and into hard labor. Economic ups and downs in the 1870s caused widespread unemployment, and led to political attacks against immigrants. The first U.S. immigration law, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 launched a series of restrictive laws targeting the Chinese that weren’t fully repealed until 1965.
Angel Island’s Immigration Station opened in 1910, processing immigrants from 84 different countries, with Chinese and Japanese far outnumbering other detainees. Known as the “Guardian of the Western Gate” by its staff, the point of Angel Island facilities was to prevent immigration.
When you take the tour, note the poetry carved into wooden walls and detention bunks. Not much else to do, waiting for your immigration case to be decided, and everything on the line.
Also explore the West Garrison Civil War buildings at the 1863 site of Camp Reynolds—built and occupied by Union troops determined to foil Confederacy plans to invade the bay and then the goldfields. Among the buildings—the largest surviving collection of Civil War structures in the nation—note the cannons still aimed to sea. They were never used, because Confederate troops never showed up. On weekends, volunteers in the park's living history program—with the help of apparently willing visitors, usually fourth and fifth graders—fire off the cannons. So, we’re prepared in case the South rises again. Also check out World War II-era Fort McDowell, near the Civil War battlements.
For more information, contact the Angel Island Conservancy, which can guide you even deeper into California history with its suggested reading list.
To get to Angel Island, you have to take the ferry—part of the fun, right? Most island visitors never get past the sun and sand at Ayala Cove, but there’s plenty more to do. Tram tours offer an island overview. Outdoorsy types consider Angel Island's hiking trails its chief attraction. On a clear day, the view from the top of little Mount Livermore is spectacular—with three bridges and almost the entire Bay Area seemingly within reach. You can even camp here, at hike-in environmental sites, with some advance planning.
