Perhaps 200,000 immigrants passed through the Angel Island Immigration Station during its lifetime, a tiny number compared to the 17 million who entered through New York's Ellis Island. Nonetheless, Angel Island's place in the consciousness of Americans on the West Coast is large, out of all proportion to the numerical record. This place is not conceded fondly or with gratitude. Angel Island's Immigration Station was not, as some have called it, the 'Ellis Island of the West,' built to facilitate the 'processing' and entry of those welcomed as new Americans. Its role was less benign: to facilitate the exclusion of Asians - first the Chinese, then Japanese, Koreans, Indians, and all other Asians. This book shows how natives and newcomers experienced the immigration process on the West Coast.Although Angel Island's role in American immigration was greatest at the dawn of the previous century, the process of immigration continues. The voices of a century ago - of exclusion, of bureaucratic and judicial nightmares, of the interwoven interests of migrants and business people of the fear of foreigners and their diseases, of moral ambiguity and uncertainty - all echo to the present day.