Poetry

While many of the carvings aren't that substantial, some of them are poems that mostly talk about how the immigrants had come to America for better opportunities, but they were met with discrimination and harsh immigration policies as well as difficult living situations at Angel Island¹. For example, one of the poems opens with the line “Instead of remaining a citizen of China, I willingly became an ox.” In this sentence, the author is basically saying that he gave up his livelihood back in China in order to voluntarily do hard labor as an ox would. This shows how the immigrants were determined to do any work that they could just to survive, and also usually to provide for a family back. The poem ends by saying “How was anyone to know that my dwelling place would be a prison?”