Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America
"Angel Islandskillfully depicts the multilayered interplay of race, nationality, class, gender, American foreign policy priorities, and political sympathies that determined who might enter the United States and who might not.This book is a masterpiece."--Peter Kwong,American Historical Review"Erika Lee and Judy Yung have written the definitive book on Angel Island. The book is meticulously researched and covers not just the Chinese experience but the experiences of all the people who passed through the immigration station. Lee and Yung have used the personal stories of immigrants to make time and place come alive, reminding us that history is something that happens to real people and their families."--Lisa See, author ofOn Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of a Chinese-American Family"With this comprehensive history, Angel Island may now stand alongside Ellis Island as the other iconic gateway to America. Lee and Yung give a thorough and humane look at the immigrants from surprisingly diverse origins who encountered an America both welcoming and unwelcoming on the Pacific coast."--Mae M. Ngai, author ofImpossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America"In this meticulously researched and richly detailed book, Lee and Yung have unlocked Angel Island's deepest secrets and the link between US immigration policy and restrictive codas of race, gender, class. Their spell-binding narrative lets us journey with Anglos and Latinos as well as Asians and myriad others as they attempt to pass through the eye of the Immigration Station needle--with often vastly different results. Deeply relevant to present-day immigration debates, this book is people's history at its best."--Helen Zia, author ofAsian American Dreams: The Emergence of an AmericanPeople"With scholarly care and a great feel for the stories of those who passed through Angel Island, Erika Lee and Judy Yung have finally given this important historic site its due. This book teases out the complexities of America's immigration laws and their enforcement and in doing so greatly adds to our understanding of the immigrant experience."--Vincent J. Cannato, author ofAmerican Passage: The History of Ellis Island"ReadingAngel Island, a gripping new book on America's immigrant history, feels like traveling over familiar territory, except that someone turned the road signs in the opposite direction....More than a superb historical text...an essential document in the on-going debate over American freedom."--California Literary Review"Lee and Yung offer a kaleidoscope of immigrant portraits that bring history alive, and, in the process, demolish many myths and stereotypes about Angel Island and American immigration in general." -San Francisco Chronicle