The Writing on the Wall

Chinese immigration

As you know immigration has always happened throughout history, long ago we migrated for food and shelter, nowadays we migrate for new opportunities such as economic, academic, job, among other opportunities.

During the period of time from 1910 to 1940, there was a big "wave" of migration from Chinese people to the US, the total of immigrants that arrived were 175,000 people migrating to the US for new opportunities. They all arrived at San Francisco, more specifically to Angel Island, which is a place that belongs to a shameful immigration time period in US history.

It is a shameful period of time in US history because some of the immigrants were treated inhumanly, which of course is a fact US citizens would love to hide from their history because it represents how unjustly they treat immigrants as a society because even though the country was founded from a genocide that killed the Native Americans to bring European immigrant's, and rebuilt the country with the idea that anyone can arrive at the US seeking for freedom, as a society, they are taught to discriminate and segregate or simply not integrate humans that are not "like them".

As the text, we read in class indicates, most of those Chinese immigrants were detainees in Along Island where they were treated horribly, separated from their families, and held retained for days, weeks, months, or even years. And what they did was write poems on the wall with a pencil, or carve them with a small knife, this poems reflected their thoughts and feelings, some of them seem like they are communicating with other poems on the wall. The poems tell the story of thousands of Chinese immigrants who just wanted a better life quality for them or/and their families.

By Valeria Muñoz Avila