In 1905, construction of an Immigration Station began in the area then known as China Cove on Angel Island. The facility, primarily a detention center, was designed to control the flow of Chinese into the country, since they were officially not welcomed with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
During the 1870s, an economic downturn resulted in serious unemployment problems and led to politically motivated outcries against immigrants, particularly the Chinese in California who would do work at low wages that European immigrants did not want.
Subsequent immigration laws were eventually consolidated under the Immigration Act of 1924, effecting certain nationalities and social classes of Asian immigrants.
The station was finally put into operation in 1910. Immigrants arrived from approximately 84 different countries, with Chinese immigrants constituting the single largest ethnic group entering at San Francisco until 1915. Widely known as the “Ellis Island of the West” the station differed from Ellis Island in one important respect – the majority of immigrants processed on Angel Island were from Asian countries, specifically China, Japan, Russia and South Asia (in that order). Dubbed as the “Guardian of the Western Gate,” by its staff, this facility was built to help keep Chinese and eventually other Asian immigrants out of the country.
You can read about the general history of Angel Island at http://sun.menloschool.org/~mbrody/ushistory/angel/human_history/ and http://www.angelisland.com/united_states_immigration_station/usis_history.php
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