Between 1910 and 1940, as new immigrants flowed through the immigration station on Angel Island inside the San Francisco Bay, Chinese immigrants faced massive discrimination because of America’s earliest racist immigration legislation – the Chinese Exclusion Act. Being held for sometimes up to years in brutal conditions at the detention center, many of these immigrants looked for solace by inscribing poetry onto the walls of the center.

Angel Island brings these poems to life in the very space they were created. Composed by Huang Ruo, the 60-minute oratorio for string quartet and chamber choir will weave a story of immigration, discrimination, and confinement - bringing history into the reality of our current lives.