The Last Hoisan Poets read Chinese poetry of Angel Island detainees

Tilden Room, 5th Floor MLK Student Union, UC Berkeley

The Last Hoisan Poets will read the moving poems that were carved into the walls of the detention barracks by immigrants incarcerated at the Angel Island Immigration Station. The poems will be read in the Hoisan-wa dialect of the immigrants, as well as in translation. Some of these poems were also featured as lyrics in the Angel Island Oratorio by Huang Ruo.

Poets Genny Lim, Nellie Wong and Flo Oy Wong all trace their roots to China’s Toisan villages, home of the Hoisan-wa Chinese dialect. These three influential women write poetry in English and Hoisan-wa, to pay homage to their mother language which is at risk of fading from collective memory.

Organized by The Last Hoisan Poets, Future Histories Lab and Arts + Design as part of A Year on Angel Island. Co-sponsored by the Arts Research Center.

Genny Lim is the recipient of two lifetime achievement literary awards from PEN Oakland and the city of Berkeley. She has also served as San Francisco Jazz Poet Laureate and former SF Arts Commissioner. Lim’s award-winning play, Paper Angels, the first Asian American play to air on PBS’s American Playhouse in 1985, has been performed throughout the U.S., Canada and China. She is author of five poetry collections, Winter Place, Child of War, Paper Gods and Rebels, KRA!, La Morte Del Tempo, and co-author, with the late Him Mark Lai and Judy Yung, of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, winner of the American Book Award in 1980. Lim has worked with past Jazz legends, such as Max Roach and long-time collaborators, Jon Jang, John Santos, Francis Wong and Anthony Brown. She is a member of The Last Hoisan Poets, who recently collaborated with Del Sol Quartet in the United States of Asian America Festival 2022.

Flo Oy Wong, co-founder of the San Francisco-based Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA), is an artist/poet/educator. A recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awards, she was a visiting artist at various colleges and universities. Articles about her art are published in multiple publications. Growing up in Oakland Chinatown, she spoke her family’s ancestral dialect, Hoisan-wa. In the year 2000, Kearny Street Workshop presented Flo Oy Wong’s “made in usa: Angel Island Shhh” solo exhibit, which explored the identity secrets of Chinese immigrants detained and interrogated in the United States. In 2018, Flo published her art and poetry book, Dreaming of Glistening Pomelos (Amazon), inspired by her childhood. Contemporary Asian Theater Scene (CATS) presented Flo with their 2022 Image Hero Award. Now, a member of The Last Hoisan Poets, she frequently reads with sister poets Genny Lim and Nellie Wong.

Oakland Chinatown-born, Nellie Wong has published four books: Dreams in Harrison Railroad Park, The Death of Long Steam Lady, Stolen Moments and Breakfast Lunch Dinner. Her poems and essays appear in numerous journals and anthologies. Two pieces are installed at public sites in San Francisco. She’s co-featured in the documentary film, “Mitsuye and Nellie Asian American Poets,” and among her recognitions, a building at Oakland High School is named after her. A poem of hers was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She’s traveled to China in the First American Women Writers Tour with Alice Walker, Tillie Olsen and Paule Marshall, among others. She’s taught poetry writing at Mills College and in Women Studies at the University of Minnesota. Nellie is the recipient of the 2022 PEN Oakland/Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Award.

Finding the Building

Parking: We recommend parking in the Telegraph-Channing Garage at 2450 Durant Avenue. For those who wish to be a bit closer to campus, the Lower Sproul Garage is nearby but has much more limited parking.

How to find the room: Enter campus at the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph. Walk towards Sather Gate. MLK Student Union is the first building on the left. Enter the main building and go past Goldie’s Coffee to the elevator to go the 5th floor Tilden Room.