Islanders by Teow Lim Goh

Reviewed by Vanesa Pacheco

Teow Lim Goh’s collection of poems imagines the lost stories of the women detained on Angel Island’s Immigration Station, as well as of their families, staff, and of those involved in the 1877 San Francisco Chinatown Riots. Decades after the Immigration station closed, poems were found written on the walls of the men’s barracks sharing their thoughts, documenting their experiences, and giving voice to their journeys. Unfortunately, those of the women’s were destroyed in a fire that burned down their barracks and, ultimately, erased their words. As Goh shares with The Fem, she blends “fact and fiction, politics and intimacy” to give voice to their tales so that others may finally hear their stories.

Featured Fem | Meet Teow Lim Goh

Teow Lim Goh is the author of Islanders (Conundrum Press, May 2016), a book of poems on the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. Her writing has appeared in PANK, The Toast, Guernica, The Rumpus, Winter Tangerine Review, and Open Letters Monthly, among other publications. She also makes letterpress and art editions of poetry and other writings at her imprint Black Orchid Press. She lives in Denver.

Fem: Tell us about Islanders.

Teow Lim Goh: Between 1910 and 1940, Chinese immigrants to America were detained at the Angel Island Immigration Station in the San Francisco Bay. As they waited for weeks and months to know if they could land, some of them wrote poems on the walls. All the poems we have on record were found in the men’s barracks: the women’s quarters were destroyed in a fire.