“Well Grandpa, we’re all here,” Terri Tamaru said to a carving located on the second floor of the former Angel Island Immigration Station barracks. Tamaru, along with her children and grandchildren, attended the Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage Oct. 1 at the Angel Island Immigration Station in the San Francisco Bay. The third annual event, presented […]
FAMILY REUNION: Third annual Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage reunites families with legacies
October 13, 2016 by Leave a Comment
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: George Hishida: A Life in Photography Interrupted by World War II
September 29, 2016 by Leave a Comment
George Mioya Hishida immigrated to the United States from Fukushima, Japan in 1913 and developed a thriving photography business in Fresno. Unfortunately, reports from a misguided informant resulted in his arrest and incarceration away from his family for over a year during World War II. This story includes a copy of a rare letter he […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Chie Takeshita: Success and tragedy
September 15, 2016 by Leave a Comment
“It was really a feeling of wow, this is America! It’s so beautiful with flowers everywhere. Then the shock of that room…†— Chie Takeshita Chie Takeshita was born in Oakland, California, on October 27, 1911 to Reisaka and Hiro Yazaki. She was the oldest of three girls and one boy in the family. She […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: The Shigenaga brothers’ detention on Angel Island and the continent during WWII
January 1, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Brothers Kakuro and Shigeo Shigenaga were both detained on Angel Island in 1942, arrested during a time of racial hysteria when many Japanese immigrants were captured by the FBI for fears they would engage in anti-American actions. They took different routes from Hawai‘i to the Department of Justice detention camps in Santa Fe, N.M., but […]
Pilgrimage sheds light on JA immigration history, honors those who preserved it
October 15, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Although largely known for its Chinese immigrant history, the United States Immigration Station at Angel Island also retains stories from many other immigrant groups, evident today by old carvings on the barrack walls in languages like Russian, Urdu and Japanese. The immigration station’s Japanese immigrant history reveals two layers of stories: Japanese immigration from 1910 […]
Second Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage Oct. 3
October 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Japanese Americans will descend upon a Bay Area island Saturday, Oct. 3, as the Nichi Bei Foundation, in partnership with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and the National Japanese American Historical Society, present the second Nikkei (Japanese American) Angel Island Pilgrimage from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Immigration Station at the Angel […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Nikkei family makes historic visit to see ancestor’s inscription on Angel Island
September 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
「廣島縣安ä½éƒ¡å·å…§æ‘町溫井ミヤモト å››å五年〠“Miyamoto Nukui Community, Kawauchi Village, Asa District, Hiroshima Prefecture 45th Year†The characters above are carved on a wall on the second floor of the former Angel Island immigration station. On Aug. 7, a group of 16 descendants of Masaru Miyamoto gathered on Angel Island with San Francisco State University Professor Charles Egan to […]
NIKKEI ANGEL ISLAND CHRONICLES: Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans on Angel Island
January 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Oct. 4, 2014 Nikkei Angel Island Pilgrimage — presented by the Nichi Bei Foundation in partnership with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and National Japanese American Historical Society — sparked a lot of interest among Japanese Americans in their potential Angel Island roots, either immigrant ancestors or those who may have been briefly […]
Alexander Weiss, who discovered Angel Island carvings, dies
October 30, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Alexander Weiss, the former California park ranger who made a landmark discovery of poems carved in the walls of the abandoned former Immigration Station on Angel Island in the early 1970s — thus helping to save the so-called “Ellis Island of the West†from certain destruction — died of heart failure on Oct. 17, 2014 […]
Historic pilgrimage reconnects Japanese American community to Angel Island immigration station
October 30, 2014 by 1 Comment
At the turn of the 20th century, the United States Immigration Station at Angel Island served as a primary entry point into the mainland United States, particularly for immigrants from Asia. Renown for its carvings of Chinese poetry by immigrants, the story has been predominantly focused on Chinese immigrant history. On Oct. 4, the Nichi […]
More info visit: Digital.Nichibei.org
Connect & Share