Angel Island State Park
BY JADE CHO
From the ferry I walk the mile of cement:
wire fence around the detention barracks
bench proclaiming Thank You America!
the road sloping past
burned down homes of staff
the hospital, the power house
to the sea—
narrow strip of sand
beneath the demolished dock
where my grandfather entered the country at eighteen.
The tram makes its way around the cratered concrete
blasting commentary—
women and men held separately
weeks, even years, waiting—
I touch the kelp.
The school children spill from the barracks’ white steps
gathering on the wooden tables to eat bagged lunches.
A truck struck my grandfather down
in a Chinatown intersection.
I am still seven sitting on the cool bathroom tiles.
Where did he go?
Where did he come from?
His checkered shirt his speckled hands
that are my father’s are my own—
At the casket, I held my father’s hand.
I searched my grandfather’s body for evidence of the crash.
I don’t remember the body
but I remember the absence of marks.
I pay $5 to the park ranger selling souvenir buttons
to enter the building where my grandfather,
great uncle, great great uncle, great grandfather,
were imprisoned.
The narrow hall smells damp and ancient,
the men’s carvings harder to see than I imagined:
thin calligraphy peeking through the off-white paint,
unremarkable.
Beneath one quatrain, someone has etched
a cartoon horse and a disembodied dick.
The Bureau of Immigration called the poems graffiti,
ordered the walls repainted in 1910.
The men chiseled the redwood.
The state filled it with putty.
The men carved again and carved
as if the wall was the state’s body.
I realize the horse and penis share
the same layer of paint as the poetry,
drawn by someone detained.
In my reverence, I’ve failed
to see them: boys
bored and doodling.
My grandfather left no notes.
He spoke to my father in Szeyup
and I stared into the ground
behind his knees.
For months I cradled
what he spoke in that building,
its yellowed transcription:
Banyan trees
rice land
a stone placed on either side
fish pond
one skylight in each bedroom
a piece of red paper
He is not doing anything
A little early in the summer time
Brick
earth floors
the large door facing south
Sometimes I slept there.
Past the fenced yard
the metal bunk beds
spaced less than an arms-length apart
white shirt hanging on a clothesline
I imagine my grandfather lying awake
staring at the grid above him
wondering if he will ever leave the island
if he walks into the washroom
in the middle of the night
and sees a man
hanging—
I walk the mile back to the ferry
past the cyclists’ bright synthetic shirts
a couple sipping wine
bench inscribed Years of Memorable Picnics
I was looking for an ancestor
I find only a picnic
next to a prison
my country.