To find out more about the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation - the producers of the traveling Gateway to Gold Mountain Exhibit - visit their website at http://www.aiisf.org/ or use the following information to contact the AIISF:
The Gateway to Gold Mountain exhibit was one of six displays that the Library coordinated, starting in Fall Quarter 2008. Each exhibit illuminated some aspect of the Chinese American experience in California, inspired by this visiting show.
Remembering 1882: Fighting for Civil Rights in the Shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act dealt with the Chinese Exclusion Act of that year, and had a profound historical influence on all aspects of life for the Chinese living in California for the next 100 years and beyond.
Gateway to Gold Mountain was produced by the Angel Island Immigration Foundation to highlight the history of that port of entry in the middle of San Francisco Bay. University Librarian Myoung-ja Lee Kwon and I first viewed it in the early 2000s, when it was showing in the San Francisco Presidio. Kwon managed to get the exhibit for the CSUEB Library, and, in subsequent years, we had the privilege of coordinating the display in its travels around the country.
We had shown various aspects of Gateway to Gold Mountain on two occasions before we obtained a booking for the Remembering 1882 traveling exhibit. We were coming to the end of our role as Gateway's host, and the conjunction of the two historical topics was so strong, that we chose to coordinate the two traveling displays. Very soon, we were afforded additional opportunities to invite the other 4 exhibits to a Chinese-American exhibit festival within the Library!
- DA
As you can discern from elsewhere on this page, in 2008 the CSUEB Libraries invited 2 traveling exhibits and 4 CSUEB departmental players to participate in this unique festival centering on the Chinese Experience in California.
What is not so clear is that - at one point when all the exhibits were finally up - they seemed to overtake the library itself:
