Poems by Japanese Angel Island Immigrants Come to Light in Professor Egan's Book

NICHI BEI WEEKLY (SAN FRANCISCO) -- The Chinese poetry carved in the walls of the former U.S. immigration station on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay is known by visitors and scholars, and played a large part in the buildings being saved for future generations. What is less known is that Japanese, Korean, Russian, Punjabi and other immigrants also left their marks on the walls. San Francisco State University Professor Charles Egan uses these writings as a starting point, adding translated prose and hundreds of poems written by Angel Island immigrants from the Nichibei Shimbun, the predecessor to the Nichi Bei Times and Nichi Bei Weekly, and Korean poetry from the Sinhan Minbo, a San Francisco-based Korean language newspaper that was read in the U.S. and Korea.