Brian Seymour

Art History

Community College of Philadelphia

I. Unit Title

Angel Island: Chinese Immigration and Issues of Censorship

II. Course

 Art 101: Visual Communication

III.  Target Audience and the Nature of the Courses

Visual Communication is the starting point for the study of art.  Most students take the course to fulfill a Humanities elective.  The course is designed to raise the student's aesthetic awareness and to familiarize the student with the elements used in the creation of art.  Students are challenged to develop critical skills that will help them process and understand all manner of visual communication.

IV. Unit Goals

Each semester I design a lesson around issues of censorship.  By focusing on Angel Island, I will challenge students to consider and discuss the “hidden” legacy of Chinese immigration to the United States and explore why this history is seldom discussed.  The unit will explore three types of censorship all evident in this case study: regulative censorship, self censorship, and structural censorship.   Regulative censorship is the most direct; it involves restricting the expression of another.  This was practiced at Angel Island by repeatedly covering up the poetry left behind by the inmates in the barracks. 

The second is self-censorship, a preemptive action where an individual will avoid certain types of expression in response to a perceived threat or expectation.  This was practiced by those who lived through it.  While it may not be surprising that this part of American history remains widely unknown as it is overlooked in U.S. history books, it is interesting to discover that Angel Island is often a revelation to second and third generation Chinese-Americans.  The third type is structural censorship involving the restriction of access or freedoms for some driven by the ideology of the dominant power structure.  In this case students might question the traditional “melting pot” view of American immigration as open and welcoming. 

V.  Introduction to Material

Nothing conjures up a blank stare like the mention of Angel Island.  It is the largest island in San Francisco Bay and was an entry point for Asian Immigration into the U.S. between 1910 and 1940.  It is commonly referred to as the Ellis Island of the West; but a sharper metaphor might be “Ellis Island meets Alcatraz.”  The difference between the two processing centers is best summarized in the Cultural Landscape Report for Angel Island Immigration Station of December 2002:

The difference between the processing of immigrants at Ellis Island and Angel Islands is the direct result of the powerful anti-immigration sentiment that swept across the Western U.S. in the late 1800s.  Chinese immigrants were accused of taking jobs away from white workers throughout the West and held responsible for the bitter depression of the 1870s.  This manifested in the first Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by Congress in 1882.  Under the Act, the federal government suspended the immigration of laborers, mainly Chinese, for ten years.  A system of government-issued certificates allowed only teachers, students, merchants and travelers entry into the United States. (U.S. Cultural Landscape Report for Angel Island Immigration Station of December 2002)

VI.        Lesson Topics

Below are a series of lesson topics which help to prepare the students for in-depth discussions and possible writing assignments surrounding issues of censorship evident in the case study of Angel Island.

A. Regulative Censorship – The Poems in the barracks

B. Self-Censorship – Secret Legacy of Chinese Immigration

C. Structural Censorship – Chinese Exclusion Act

A. Regulative Censorship – The Poems in the barracks

Walls of poetry were discovered accidentally in 1970 by a park ranger just as the government had marked the abandoned station for demolition.  He found hundreds of poems, written in Cantonese, in traditional Chinese characters, carved into the wooden walls of the men’s barracks.  They were obscured for years beneath layers of paint used by Immigration officials to cover them up.  They have been brought back to life by three offspring of Angel Island inmates in the book Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island 1910-1940.  The poems recount the broken dreams, frustrations, and even lingering hope of the immigrants who carved them while locked up daily in the barracks.

Assignments:

Students would form into small groups and analyze one poem which they would then present to the class.  Issues to discuss to include: Are these poems works of art?  Is there a visual component to them?  Who was the intended audience?

What issues of censorship are involved? 

Students could be asked to consider the following quote from Han Dynasty scholar Wang Bi: “The image is what brings out concept; language is what clarifies the image. Nothing can equal image in giving the fullness of concept.”

Suggested Visuals:

            The Poems

Sources:

 Lai, Him Mark, Lim, Genny, and Yung, Judy. Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991.

http://www.chinapage.org/calligraphy.html (section on Calligraphy as art)

B. Self-Censorship – Secret Legacy of Chinese Immigration

The silence of these Chinese-Americans is a conundrum.  We are a nation of immigrants who celebrate our family tales, mostly of European heritage, as part of our cultural identity.  The Chinese immigrants of the first half of the 20^th Century seem to stand outside of this shared tradition, despite the fact that their role in preparing the West for settlement, by helping to build the railroads, helping to bring irrigation to a millions acres of California farmland etc., is well documented.  Self-censorship is based in fear.  In this case many immigrants used fake documents or assumed fake identities – becoming “paper sons and daughters” to skirt the immigration laws.  Therefore, many Chinese lived their entire lives in fear that they would be found out and deported.  Furthermore, if their families knew too much they were also at risk.  As a corollary to this fear, their silence may also have been due to a deep-rooted sense of shame in being detained and mistreated.  This aspect of the Chinese experience in this time period is best symbolized in the poems uncovered in the restoration of Angel Island.

Assignments:

Using a listing of immigration questions, the students would interrogate one another.  Discussion topics to include: issues of self-censorship; the role of the artist in a non-Democratic system; the use of fear and intimidation to silence opposition and dissent.

Questions for the students might include:

How many of the questions could you answer?

How did you feel about being asked these questions?

Which questions seemed the worst to you and why?

Suggested Visuals:

A listing of immigration questions

Images of the Immigration Station on Angel Island

Sources:

Chin, Tung Pok & Chin, Winifred C. Paper Son: One Man's Story. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.

Sucheng Chan, ed. Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), ix-x.

C. Structural Censorship – Chinese Exclusion Act

The clearest issue of censorship is the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, of which Angel Island is a potent symbol.   All Chinese were subject to detention without rights or legal counsel. 

In a free democratic America, we expect the freedoms accorded to us by the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.  The Exclusion Act challenged these rights and established a regulative action which more closely resembles a structural censorship associated with non-democratic institutions. 

Assignments:

Students would break into groups to discuss examples of structural censorship, and present to the class a separate clear example of their choosing from the history of art. Discussion topics to include: how does structural censorship relate to Regulative and Self Censorship? Who benefits from this type of Censorship?

Suggested Visuals:

Images of the First Emperor of China

Images of a Roman Emperor

            Nazi “Degenerate Art”

            Official Portrait of Mao

Sources:

Chen, Shehong. Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Further Readings:

Chan, Sucheng, ed. Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991.

Chen, Shehong. Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Chin, Tung Pok & Chin, Winifred C. Paper Son: One Man's Story. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.

Childs, Elizabeth C., ed. Suspended License: Censorship and the Visual Arts. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997.

Lai, Him Mark, Lim, Genny, and Yung, Judy. Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1991.

Lee, Erika. At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Websites:

Angel Island Foundation -http://www.aiisf.org

Angel Island State Park - http://www.angelisland.org/links2.html

Chinese in California - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/cubhtml/cichome.html

National Archives -http://www.archives.gov/facilities/finding_aids/chinese_immigration.html

NAATA – http://www.naatanet.org/separatelivesbrokendreams/index.html

Immigrant Journeys of Chinese Americans - http://www.angel-island.com/

Angel Island – Shhh! - http://www.kearnystreet.org/AngelIsland/Pages/Frameset.html

Paper Son – One Man’s Search for His Heritage - http://www.paperson.com/index.htm

Take an I.N.S. Interrogation Online - http://www.jocelync.com/lwps_form.html

When did your father last come to visit?
At what time of day did he come?
What was served at the meal?
Did your father bring gifts?
Is your father more or less grey haired than your mother?
What side of the bed does your father sleep on when he is home?
How did your father send money to travel?
How many cousins do you have?
What are their names?
Where is the kitchen rice bin?
What material was the flooring in your bedroom?
How many houses are in your neighborhood?
Where is the nearest ancestral temple?
What number block is your street to the main road?
How many steps is it from the front door to the street?
How many windows are on the west side of your house?
Who lives next door?
How many pets do they have?
What were their names?

Being idle in the wooden building, I opened a window. The morning breeze and bright moon lingered together. I reminisce the native village far away, cut off by clouds and mountains. On the little island the wailing of cold, wild geese can be faintly heard.  The hero who has lost his way can talk meaninglessly of the sword. The poet at the end of the road can only ascend a tower. One should know that when the country is weak, the people's spirit dies. Why else do we come to this place to be imprisoned?

For what reason must I sit in jail? It is only because my country is weak and my family poor. My parents wait at the door but there is no news. My wife and child wrap themselves in quilt, sighing with loneliness. Even if my petition is approved and I can enter the country,  When can I return to the Mountains of Tang with a full load? From ancient times, those who venture out usually become worthless. How many people ever return from battles?