Angel Island is little far from San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. It is a pretty small island in comparison with the mainland, but the history corresponds to this small place is not less then that corresponds to the large mainland in any sense. The view of San Francisco bay from Angel Island is so pleasing and so beautiful. Everyone could see San Francisco city's building and Bay Bridge. The peace of the Island makes people feel so relax and so good too. This feeling, however, must have not been come up immigrants during the time that Angel Island was used as a Gateway to the United States. .
Compared with the size of Angel Island, the immigration center is in a very small area. It is located along the coast. The number of buildings and the size of barrack are small beyond my expectation, even though not all buildings have remained. Fortunately, volunteers in the museum provided a history tour, which introduced visitors the history of this island in details. The conductor took and showed us several rooms. These rooms are pretty small and just like prison, where all immigrants had to wait for long time until they were allowed to enter the United States mainland. It must have been very uncomfortable for anyone to stay in such a small room for uncountable days and nights while he or she would only have a dream, but not a promising future.
I was especially shocked after visiting those so-called "bathrooms". The bathrooms do not have doors and keeps no privacy at all. All immigrants' lives were observed, not even when they were in the bathroom. They were forced to stay in those rough barracks, and treated, as they were criminals. I could imagine there were so many of them, who have broken their heart in this small island, although they came to the United States with great dreams. They craved a lot of poems on the wall, displaying to every visitor how depressing, how frustrated, and how worrying they were at that time.
