Preventing Erasure: How the Angel Island Immigration Station Was Saved

Location: Osher Theater, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

Ed Tepporn, Executive Director, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Angel Island in San Francisco Bay is a crucial spot marking the history of exclusionary, race-based immigration policy. Its immigration station has sometimes been called “the Ellis Island of the West.”  But Angel Island was an ambivalent gateway, a place of incarceration and exclusion for migrants as well as an entry for half a million newcomers from 80 countries, mostly from Asia. Despite its significance, this important historical site was almost lost. Ed Tepporn will discuss how activists saved this site, current day efforts, and its meaning for the future.

This talk is  part of a year-long program of performances, exhibitions, and talks that use Angel Island as an observatory from which to view landscapes of migration, incarceration and resistance.  A Year on Angel Island is organized by Future Histories Lab and Berkeley Arts and Design. 

Sign up to hear about future lectures, performances and exhibitions here.

Ed Tepporn has served as Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station since 2019. He previously held leadership positions at the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF), at Saint Louis Effort for AIDS and at Missouri’s Statewide HIV/STD Prevention Community Planning Group. His award-winning work has often focused on strengthening storytelling as a tool for community transformation.  Ed received a B.A. in Biology and Psychology from Washington University and an attended the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.

Free and in-person; see COVID safety protocols here.

The event will also be live-streamed via Zoom webinar. To attend online, register for the webinar here.

Video of this talk will be posted about one week after the event.