－ DVBS Archive Team －

Written by: Soong Way Wong (11), Justin Gao (11)

Media by: Len Ma (12), Alston Liu (12), Alan Seng (12)

Video by: Alan Seng (12)

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On April 15th, the Developing Virtue Secondary Boys’ School went on a trip to Angel Island. The boys, totaling 10, set out at 7 am to catch a ferry that would depart at 10 am. For safety reasons, we all wore masks while on the ferry and on the island. After about 12 minutes, we arrived on Angel Island. While Ellis Island served as the immigration center for Europeans, the immigration center on Angel Island screened immigrants coming from Asia into the West Coast.

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The immigration center on Angel Island is also called a detention center. Many who came waited a long time getting applications processed, some even up to 2 years before they got an answer. Was life there miserable? It was. At the start, they weren’t given mattresses to sleep in because Americans thought that Chinese don’t use mattresses. Living conditions were terrible, there were meals composed of malnutritious foods such as yellowed leaves. In a room that would normally fit a hundred people, there were a couple hundred living in it. Also, they were given limited freedom in this prison-like environment with gunmen stationed around the fringes of the immigration center.  

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The trip to Angel Island taught us a lot more about Asian History in America. We learned–through the descriptions and sorrowful carvings on the wall–that our ancestors, us as an Asian community, suffered very much to pave the way for us being able to live in America. It teaches us to be grateful for the good life we are living in right now. 

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Video Recap:

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Special thanks to Dr. Setera for making the trip possible! Further thanks to Mr. Barth for driving the students!

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DVBS Archive Team

April 21, 2022