AIISF Talk: "Preventing Erasure: How the Angel Island Immigration Station Was Saved"

Angel Island in San Francisco Bay is a crucial spot marking the history of exclusionary, race-based immigration policy. Its immigration station has sometimes been called “the Ellis Island of the West.” But Angel Island was an ambivalent gateway, a place of incarceration and exclusion for migrants as well as an entry for half a million newcomers from 80 countries, mostly from Asia. Despite its significance, this important historical site was almost lost.

Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) Executive Director Ed Tepporn will discuss how activists saved this site, current-day efforts, and its meaning for the future.

The talk on September 16 at the Osher Theater in Berkeley is part of a year-long program of performances, exhibitions, and talks that use Angel Island as an observatory from which to view landscapes of migration, incarceration, and resistance.

This free event will be in-person and also live-streamed online via Zoom webinar. To attend online, register for the Zoom webinar here.