前不久，天使岛移民站基金会(Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation)来函，诚邀本人上岛观摩移民站的故址。一位朋友知晓我平常喜欢弄些中文诗英译，就给基金会作了个举荐。此行的目的在于细察中国移民在移民站羁押室木板墙上留下的中文诗。沧海横流，如今已经到了保存原貌，文物入档，昭示后人的年代了。
I know where Angel Island is because I see it virtually everyday on my way to work. I carpool from East Bay to the City every morning. On the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, Angel Island always appears on my right as the biggest piece of land floating in the Bay, so it seems. From time to time I am mesmerized by its green and mystic appearance from afar. Do angels really reside on that blissful oasis amidst of this vast stretch of heavenly water? For some reason in the past 15 years living in the Bay Area, I hadn't found time to visit the Island, which has been a state park for as long as I have been here. But I certainly know where Angel Island is, though I knew very little of what is on it, except that some Chinese were detained there long time ago.
The other day, the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation sent me an invitation to join a group visit to the Station on the Island. A friend who knows my past involvement with Chinese poetry and translation introduced me to the Foundation. The purpose of this visit was to take a close look at the Chinese poems written on the walls of the old barracks by former detainees, Chinese immigrants who came through and were detained at the Immigration Station between 1910 and 1940. Time has, indeed, changed and now is the time for preservation, documentation and education of the site.
January 25, 2002, brought us a hazy sun out of the hills on the east to the emerald Bay. The air was rather chilly and heavy but the day was pleasant enough for a field trip. Driving to Tiburon, for no reason I suddenly recalled that the forecast said it would rain late in the day. At Tiburon dock, the view is almost exactly the opposite side of the Bay Bridge; from that angle, Angel Island suddenly gained some real bulk, became taller, wider and more formidable with many trees and giant rocks, holding steady facing the currents of the Bay. The boat ride from Fisherman's Wharf in the city may take much longer, but for us it was a rather brief ride, about 10 minutes, more or less. Two vans were waiting there on the pier at the Island side with friendly park rangers to greet us and take us to the station which is just over the hills from the pier.
The Station, which used to have a pier of its own, was built to process newly arrived immigrants from all over the world, like Ellis Island in New York. Unlike at Ellis Island, the real reason or intention, rather, to relocate the immigration station here from the City, was to isolate the new immigrants, the Chinese immigrants in particular. The Chinese were not welcome here as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act made amply clear. In those days, the only way for a Chinese person to come to the land of gold was through immediate family relation with earlier arrivals. Some in Canton, indeed, had blood relations while others bought faulty papers from the streets, in order to escape the economic hardship in China at the time. Little did they know what awaited them was a prison that promised no escape. The Station was so designed to serve the dual purposes of cutting off the newly arrived from other Chinese in the City and making it easier for the authorities to interrogate and deport the undesirables. The Station, although declared as unfit for human conditions by the immigration authorities at the higher up levels, nevertheless opened for business around 1910 and lasted three decades as a device and symbol of "Chinese are unwelcome here." Biases and racism used to wear a very thin mask, if not going completely naked.
Asians or Orientals, as they were branded at the time, the Chinese in particular, were singled out and treated with outright cruelty. The Chinese peasants were suspected, besides false entry, to have carried sordid diseases. Several diseases of suspected as common among Chinese were listed as sufficient reasons for deportation. Those who carried treatable diseases would first have to check into the hospital on site for treatment before their being processed for other faults.
The rude welcome ceremony started by lining every boat person into the long queue off the boat inside the maze of the administration building, Asians and Europeans segregated of course. They were registered, checked out by health officials, and then put into barracks, again segregated by race, gender. Married couples were separated for the duration and children under 12 stayed with their mothers, while older boys were locked up in the men's barracks. Already the Island promised no escape; once detained, those immigrants also lost the privilege to wander off the premises as even steps and walkways were enclosed with barbed wire. It was prison in its truest sense. The thin mask of fairness illustrated itself in the fact that every newly arrived must go through the process on the island; the naked racism showed in that only the Chinese were kept there for the longest time, up to several years for a few truly unfortunate while most non-Chinese would get off the island in a matter of two to three days. Some detainees even complained that Japanese POWs were treated with more dignity than innocent Chinese at the same site. On average, many Chinese spent up to three months in the barracks at the beginning; the process was sped up somewhat under fierce protests and lobbying from Chinese communities and diplomats off the Island.
Who can blame them when the children of the Chinese immigrants are so riled even today about such a harsh treatment of their parents and grandparents several decades ago? The pain has cut deep and still hurts in some hearts.
As some form of justice, the station was closed down after the administration caught fire in 1940. Luckily nobody died. The barracks were later used to detain POWs during WWII and the Island was handed to the US Army for a period of time. Some time after the Army left the Island, it was converted into a state park.
Anyway, that day we came as honored guests. In our honor, the rangers opened up the old hospital that is now falling apart; the staff had noticed some writing on the walls in the hospital ward but wanted us to verify if there is any significance in the drawing and writing. The Chinese stairways were broken, so we had to go up, with the aid of flashlights, the designated European stairway. There wasn't much to see except a few scribbles by Japanese POWS.
By contrast, the most amazing part of the Immigration Station has to be the poems meticulously carved on the wooden walls of the Chinese men's barracks as the Chinese women's barracks were burnt down inside the old administration building. One can't help but notice the massive undertaking and brave display of an unyielding human spirit in the poems. Their writing converted this once cruel place into a Chinese or human legend.
I read many poems in Chinese. Poetry seerves as such a constant flow in Chinese culture, forever supplying strength, beauty and hope to the children of the Yellow Emperor. Every character is cut out of an image. We were born to breathe poetry in and out as our forefathers have made poetry an easier access even to the common folks. Poetry in a magically Chinese way seems to purify the soul from everyday dust and to provide those in predicament with warmth and guidance to uplift their spirit to far and beyond. Poetry is almost a Chinese religion, only the strength is drawn from within, as opposed to from something almighty and above. Only those children who can recite a few poems can be said of properly schooled and cultured.
So, it was almost logical to me that a bunch of hapless detainees locked up in the dark and wet barracks in this forgotten corner of the world more than half century ago resorted themselves to poetry. In my mind, the poetry surfaced from within their souls when they had time to encounter themselves here.
What stunned me was how every inch of the walls in two big rooms was covered with beautifully crafted characters of poetry. Every inch reachable by the hand and eye was filled with calligraphy of rather excellent apprenticeship of the art. The poems were put up in good order, decent craftsmanship, and plenty of dignity, all indicated a highly organized effort. More than half century later, the beauty of the calligraphy determinedly shines through time and the many layers of paint, and still speaks volumes about what went on in this corner of the world. What a massive undertaking in a time of depression and hopelessness. The poetry may not be of top notch quality, but the sheer number of the works can move mountains and part the Bay.
After walking through several rooms and staring at the characters painted over, I could sense a well-organized life among the detainees, at least in their effort to express themselves in poetry. Most of the Chinese detainees were in their 20s and teens at the time. The time spent behind the walls of the barracks was nothing but sheer agony and frustration, sentiments that were clearly present in their poetry. But the remarkable part was that they did not sulk in vain and emptiness as they were entitled to do under such harsh light. Instead, they fell back to this thousand year old Chinese tradition. They found a noble outlet for their life's struggles in a foreign island where the angels were conspicuously absent. Here there was teaching and learning of the ancient art of the Chinese poetry in the classic tradition. They probably did their poetry contests and went through their selection and calligraphy and the meticulous carving process. They poured their heart out for us to see. Yes, we see tears, twisted brows; but also the joy and satisfaction of getting in touch with human spirit and reliving some of the moments of their ancestors treading treacherous waters. There might be an elder who led the young onto this path, a path that paved its way out of the darkness of bias and hatred and into the light of human spirit triumphing over cold rock and ocean water.
The record showed that the authorities in the station didn't like the walls to be carved. So they scolded the young men who did the carving and ordered to paint it over. But the writing and the teaching of the poetry couldn't be suppressed. More were written on the paint; another layer of paint was slapped on; at the end the paint is three layers deep. And more than half a century later, the originally carved poems are the ones still reaching out to the visitors through thick paint.
Coming out of the barracks, I was dazzled by even the faint sunlight of this late January day. I thought I saw a deer, but it was only a tree stump. On the way back on the boat and in the car, I kept hearing voices that seem to be speaking across the corridors of time. Could angels write poetry and speak Chinese? The heart encountering heavy grief would welcome some rain, a heavy downpour ... Let's hope the ugly part of history will never repeat itself so that angels can return to their habitat ...
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三公子® (12534 字, 点击319次) 2009-3-6
