In “Angel Island,” an oratorio depicting the suffering and isolation of Chinese detainees at California’s Angel Island Immigration Detention Center, a choir recites poems about oppression and misery.
“Like a stray dog forced into confinement, like a pig in a bamboo cage, our souls are lost in this winter’s prison,” they sing in Mandarin. “We are inferior to horses and cows. Our tears were shed on a cold day.”
This poem is one of more than 200 inscribed on the walls of the barracks on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. On Angel Island, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly from China and Japan, were interrogated and detained for months, sometimes even years, seeking entry. America in the early 20th century. Their harrowing testimony is the emotional core of “Angel Island,” by Chinese-born composer Huang Luo, which had its New York premiere this month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the opera and theater festival “Prototype.” Ru. .
Directed by Matthew Ozawa and featuring members of the Del Sol Quartet and Trinity Wall Street Choir, this production depicts life on Angel Island, a port of entry for many Asian immigrants from 1910 to 1940. It was a contrast to the harsh atmosphere. To the more welcoming spirit of Ellis Island.
The oratorio also explores the impact on people of Asian descent in America, incorporating historical events such as the 1871 massacre of Chinese residents in Los Angeles and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the immigration of workers from China. It also addresses legacies of injustice and discrimination.
Fan described “Angel Island” as activist art, saying, “I want to tell people the history that they didn’t learn in school.”
“This is not just a Chinese-American story,” he says. “This is an American story.”
The oratorio, which premiered on Angel Island in 2021, comes at a time of heightened concern about the treatment of Asians and Asian Americans in the United States, following a wave of violence against Asians early in the war. coronavirus pandemic.
“Angel Island” alludes to parallels between past and present, including racist depictions of Asians as vectors of disease in the late 1800s, which ushered in pandemic xenophobia; It emphasizes the use of the label “Chinese virus” when describing the new coronavirus. 19.
In Ozawa’s production, dancer Jiehun Connie Shau plays a modern-day woman who unearths artifacts that explain her great-grandmother’s immigration to the United States. Through her films and her movements, she immerses herself in the world of her ancestors.
Ozawa, who is Japanese-American, said it was difficult to join Angel Island, which features a predominantly Asian-American cast and creative team, because of its graphic history. But the work can also be uplifting.
“It’s painful to be reminded of racism, prejudice and exclusion, but at the same time it’s very cathartic to come to terms with it, to feel what our ancestors felt and to know that we are not alone,” he said. said. “We are actually part of a larger story full of hope, redemption, and the power to change things.”
Huang and the San Francisco-based Del Sol Quartet began work on “Angel Island” in 2017 after receiving a $150,000 grant from the Hewlett Foundation to create an oratorio about detainees. Immigrants from China, Japan, India, Russia and other countries faced overcrowded and unsanitary conditions on Angel Island. They were usually detained for weeks or months, but some were held for as long as two years. Many were eventually deported.
Charlton Lee, the quartet’s Chinese-American viola player, had been pitching the idea of the Angel Island project to fans. Phan has previously performed with Del Sol, collaborating on a chamber music performance of Phan’s music ahead of the American premiere of his first opera, “The Doctor.” . Impressed by Huang’s ability to set Chinese text to music, Li said he thought Angel Island’s history had been ignored.
“We always look at Angel Island in the middle of the bay, but people don’t know about the detention center,” he said. “They don’t know the plight of immigrants who came here to start a new life but got stuck.”
In 2018, Huang and the quartet visited the island, which is now a state park. They examined poems written in Chinese in which detainees described feelings of anger, fear, and homesickness. They began improvising in the barracks, with members of the quartet accompanying Huang as he sang melodies in Mandarin.
“Being there was an unforgettable feeling,” he said. “But it was also heartwarming to bring something living back into a place that had been so dead.”
Fans chose several verses to the music: “The Seascape,” “When We Bade Farewell,” and “Buried Beneath Clay and Earth.” He added historical works that were read to the accompaniment of the quartet. It included a discussion of the 1871 Los Angeles Massacre, in which a mob shot or hanged at least 18 Chinese residents. A list of questions used by American immigration officials in the late 1800s to assess whether Asian women were prostitutes. and an 1873 essay by Henry Josiah West warned of “Chinese invasion.”
“The question is whether we should submit to the growth of this pagan Republic of China,” West wrote.
In 2021, after a year-long delay due to the pandemic, Huang and the Del Sol Quartet returned to Angel Island for the premiere.
Lee said he was uncomfortable listening to music in the barracks, which he considered dark and ominous.
“It felt like ghosts were coming out of the walls,” he said. “It was as if we had performed some kind of ritual and suddenly these people who were suffering were able to smile.”
Since then, “Angel Island” has been performed several more times, including in Berkeley, California, Washington, and Singapore.
Mr. Huang recently expanded on this work with another poem, “The Sea Surrounds the Solitary,” written by Mr. Huang, a Chinese survivor of the Titanic sinking who was barred from entering the United States under the Exclusion Act. Added an exercise about Mr. Ran.
The New York performance will be the first full-scale production of “Angel Island.” Dancers will be featured throughout, and film will play a key role, with historical footage and videos of Angel Island shot by Bill Morrison projected onto the screen. Choir members imitate carving Chinese characters and poems.
“This is really a manifestation of community,” Ozawa said. “We want the audience to be completely immersed and experience a hypnotic sense of ritual.”
And, he added, he hopes the story will resonate with a wide audience.
“Angel Island still lives and breathes in the bodies of many Asian Americans,” he said. “My true hope is that all of us remember, connect with, and learn from our personal heritage, our past, our ancestors’ experiences in coming to America, but also the discourse for those new to this country. It is about feeling empowered by materials that evoke empathy and understanding.”
Internee poetry remains at the heart of “Angel Island,” giving the work a spiritual basis.
Huang, who came to the United States as a student in the 1990s and first stopped in San Francisco, said he could relate to many of the poems.
“There’s that same feeling of what it means to leave your family behind and coming here hoping for a new life but not knowing what’s going to happen,” he said.
At the end of “Angel Island,” members of the choir leave the stage and surround the audience, an act intended to make them feel part of the detainee community.
The last poem of the oratorio depicts him leaving Angel Island and preparing to return home. It tells about Jingwei, a mythical bird that tries to fill the sea with twigs and stones.
Obstacles had been standing in the way for half a year, but
Depression and hatred gather on my face.
Well, I have to go back to my homeland,
I struggled like Jingwei Bird, but it was no use.