Island of American history ...

4th April 2009

Angel Island State Park is a beautiful place where American History is alive. Situated in the middle of the San Francisco bay, it was home for Miwok Indians, jail for WW II POWs, detention center for immigrants, and also a missile base. Now it is a State Park :) Brochure and Map.

Well, this was a meetup ... and I did really meet some interesting people :) Through meetup we had a guided tour inside the historic Immigration Services (IS) building. The carpool from Sunnyvale to Tiburon and back was very amusing. The ferry ride was mostly uneventful. I observed people as I always do. There were people from the meetup group and others as well. Some photographers were bragging, some were mentoring, some were learning, some were greeting each other, some kept themselves aloof and some were getting bored. There were families, taking care of children, and children were excited to see the water spashing with the moving ferry, and couples enjoying their romance. After the short ferry ride we were on the Angel Island and after climbing 140 steps and half-mile hike on the paved road or so called Perimeter trail we were at the Immigration Services building. At The Bell.


Tom had put a lot of effort on booking the tickets for all of us. We had a long introduction about how immigrants were detained, their sad stories and lonely days here. It was literally long, I took the picture of the bell, and then again took some more, then changed the lens to wide angle took some more pictures of the bell, used the ND8 filter took some more ... still the narration was going on ... At last, we were inside the detention buildings. Now, the action started. We were lead by the guide and then tail-ended by two ranger officers. So many photographers with tripods and those tiny rooms, huh !


We took pictures of everything there. Not sure about what everyone in there was thinking ... but, all of us were taking pictures of nuts, bolts, fence, doors, walls, rusted hinges, taps, beds, diaries, luggage, shoes, clothes, games, scribbling on walls, holes in the walls, and even toilets. Then I felt funny and thought to use the toilets wherever I went, 100-200 years later, may be some group of photographers will take pictures of one of them at least :) At times, when I hear the stories about history or archeology, I get an urge to dig a hole in the ground and burry a stack of dinner plates there, so 1000 years later archeologists will still have their jobs. The story could be "These dinner plates are made of something something which might have been used by Royal families. These plates age back to the era of Queen Kusum" ... When I was in Orkney Islands, Scotland, I visited popular archeological sites Skara Brae and Stone Henges, I felt like collecting few pebbles from the St. Margaret's Hope and burry them in Sunnyvale, California :) What would future archeologists say ?

Okay, back to Angel Island IS building ... I was taking pictures when all these funny thoughts were running in mind. But, then I heard from one of the fellow photographers that his grandfather was detained there for some time, and he was thinking on one of those beds his grandfather might have slept, he might have sat on that lonely chair by the window. Now, it doesn't feel funny anymore. After taking pictures of some of the possessions of those unfortunate people who had to spend time here ... and some poems carved on the wooden walls, our tour of IS got over.





We wandered around bit more on the island, again took pictures of whatever we saw, mutilated lamps, windows, broken stairs, electric wiring etc before returning to mainland.


And then usual meetup style early-dinner-or-late-lunch at Guaymas Mexican Restaurant, Tiburon. The total cost was $32 (excluding food), cheap huh ? This makes me visit Alcatraz too.