Angel Island Immigration Case Study

On Angel Island, the United States of America took it upon themselves to record and examine all of the people emigrating from their homelands. Most of the people immigrating to America through Angel Island were Asian in origin. Upon arrival to Angel Island, a medical inspection was one of the first examinations that the immigrants were put through to determine whether they were fit to enter the United States. The medical examiners inspected every immigrant for signs of disease or being unfit and detained them for further examination. If immigrants were found to have something that was able to be easily taken care of, they were treated. If, upon further inspection, an immigrant was found to have a chronic illness, they were then marked as unfit and denied entry into the United States.
Angel Island was an immigrant arrival station on the western coast of the United States. The station, which operated for thirty years, from 1910 to 1940, was the main entry point into the United States for people arriving from the Pacific routes. More than one million people were processed at the station; most were allowed to enter the United States but to do so they had to pass various medical examinations to meet the requirements for entry . There are many reasons that made people immigrate to the United States. One reason was the

hope for a better life, which included economic opportunities and an escape from oppressive lives that were to be found back in their home countries.
As part of the immigration process, new arrivals were subjected to medical examinations at the hands of staff working on the island. Men were separated from the women and children. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, that restricted Chinese immigration into the country, the examination process was extraordinarily harsh. Beyond the typical medical examination, Asian immigrants were checked for all sorts of diseases that were seen as being “the most prevalent infections and parasitic infections in Asia at the time ”. These included: trachoma, both the bubonic and the pneumonic plague, intestinal parasites. The intestinal parasite examination process was often one humiliation to the immigrants. They were made to disrobe in front of other immigrants and a stool sample was asked for on demand. One unknown Chinese immigrant left a note on the wall of one of the barracks he was detained in detailing one of the processes that they were made to go though. He wrote “They stab the ear to test the blood and in addition they examine the excrement. If there is even a shadow of hookworms, one must be transferred to undergo a cure.” They were also checked for tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases and any physical disorders, such as cardiac irregularities and varicose veins.
If the medical examination was not passed, two things can happen. If whatever ailment the immigrant was not able to be treated they were deported back to their home country. If the ailment was treatable, they were given the option of receiving a cure. Most of the immigrants chose to receive the cure even if they did not have the money to pay for it. Some did not know when or if they were even chosen to be cured. Once the medical process was completed they were detained in barracks until their paperwork was processed.
Asian immigration into Angel Island hardly resembled the journey of an European immigrant into Ellis Island. Arrivals at Ellis Island were greeted by the nearby Statue of Liberty. At Angel Island, the objective was to exclude new arrivals. Asians, most of whom were Chinese, were greeted with suspicion and rejection. Because of the anti-Chinese regulations and attitudes, many Asians were viewed as “others”. At most on Ellis Island, the severity of treatment was based on class differences, but on Angel Island not only were there class distinctions, but racial prejudices have to be taken into account and compounded in. When it came time for medical examinations, those traveling first class were not subjected to as invasive and violating an exam. White Europeans and other American citizens returning from overseas travel were not subjected to the uncomfortable eyelid exam that many Asians endured even though during this time trachoma, the disease that the eye examination looked for, was associated with eastern and southern European immigrants. The officers inspecting the Asian, mostly made up of Chinese, did not take the same sanitary measures during the examinations as they did for the returning Americans and white Europeans. Examples of which are hand washing and tool sterilization2
As previously mentioned, when and if a medical examination was failed, the immigrants were then detained on Angel Island in poorly maintained barracks. All of the barracks were a series of wooden structures. There was a separation of sexes, because there was a fear of information exchange. The detention barracks were not sanitary and only a few of the toilets were working. The bunks that they were made to sleep in were crammed together with a lack of space and staffing. It was mostly male, as they made up the majority of the gender that were detained, and they were separated by nationality with different nationalities getting a different floor. Kamechiyo Takahashi recalls,” I never seen such a prison-like place as Angel Island.” Many immigrants expressed their anger at their current situation by inscribing various poems on the walls of the barracks. Many of the traces of these poems have been preserved today.
Approximately sixty thousand Chinese immigrants that passed through Angel Island and of that sixty thousand, almost ten thousand of them were deported back to China.

This is over five times as many immigrants deported from Ellis Island2. A large percentage of Chinese were expelled from the country because of alleged medical diagnoses. Asian immigration to Angel Island was met with copious amounts of xenophobia. Not only because the government wanted to keep the Chinese out of the country, but also by the American people that saw Asian immigrants as not being able to different and not being able to assimilate into American society under any

circumstances.