Week 8 Analysis: Close Reading on Poem#1 of the Four Poems of Angel Island and Chinatown

In this week's analysis, I will be looking into one of the Angel Island and Chinatown poems written anonymously by Chinese Immigrants. The particular writing that I would like to focus on would be Poem #1 and how it compares to the other three. I would like to focus on the historical significance as well as the cultural-belief aspect of it also.

To analyze the poem, it is important to understand the historical time it takes place in. During this period, Chinese immigrants were looked at as a nuisance. After the start of the Gold Rush, people of many different countries began to immigrate into California in aims for building fortune. However, the opinions on Chinese were painted negatively as they came in multitudes and often stayed short-term. They claimed and sent their fortune back to China and often returned home after taking what they came for. This made Californians fear economic crash as the money wasn't being put back into the region. This resulted in the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1982, which prohibited immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years and dramatically reduced the Chinese population in the United States. Tensions began to decrease. In 1906 however, the Great Fire *the same fire and earthquake described in "The Californians" by Gertrude Atherton* had burned through municipal buildings destroying Immigrant documents. This started a surge of mass immigration and the emergence of "paper families" or falsified families. Many incoming applicants were detained for questioning and background checks for months on end in attempts to ensure legal immigration.

This poem describes that lengthy wait. Immigrants were kept on Angel Island and many wrote poems on the walls and doors of their dread, losing of hope, and often were "pining at the delayed progress" (line 2). The narrator says "What can one sad person say to another? Unfortunate travelers everywhere wish to commiserate" (lines 3&4), showing how many wrote on the walls as a form of communication and to journalize their feelings.

In the second half of the poem, we start to see the author's beliefs shine through. He/she begins to question the point. Why worry yourself more? We start to see the cultural belief of fate and destiny and the belief of deities as well. "How is one to know what is predestined?...Who is to say it is not the will of heaven?" (lines  5&6). The narrator even compares the struggles to how "heroes often were the first ones to face adversity" (line 9), giving a light at the end of the tunnel. The author is trying to remain hopeful and is also saying that struggles are experienced by great people, somewhat showing self-empowerment and letting other readers know to also be hopeful.

From this we can assume a few things about the author and compare it to the rest of the poems. In the next two poems we see how the losing of hope gets worse over the length of time they are detained. The second is about waiting years or more for loved ones and the third is of depression and complete loss of hope to the point of no will or motivation to live. From this, we can assume that the author of this first poem hasn't been detained long or perhaps has high confidence in his/her story or situation and is absolute that they will be granted citizenship. This is shown not only through the hopeful last line of the poem, but also in how he/she mocks the other people for writing so negatively and miserably.

Overall, this poem plays a great visual in showing the transition in morale when being detained as a Chinese Immigrant. Through this poem we also get historical allusion as well as a peek into the Chinese cultural beliefs of fate and a God of some sort.

Works Cited:

Anonymous. “1” The Literature of California, edited by Jack Hicks, University of California Press, 2000, pp. 354.