Other Public Programming

A Year on Angel Island included a wide range of public programming including lectures, poetry readings, performances and walking tours, presented by campus departments and partners. See a list of public programming below.

Spring 2023 Events

Jan. 21

National Angel Island Day with The Last Hoisan Poets

de Young Museum, San Francisco

11:00 am – 3:00 pm

The Last Hoisan Poets, Genny Lim, Flo Oy Wong and Nellie Wong, three descendants of Angel Island immigrants,commemorated the 113th anniversary of the Angel Island Immigration Station’s opening on National Angel Island Day. This poetry program also featured musical performances by the Del Sol Quartet.

Jan. 26

Erika Lee: Angel Island: History and Movement

Zoom Webinar

4pm-6pm

Organized by Prof. Leti Volpp, Director of the Center for Race and Gender

Erika Lee

Bae Family Professor of History, Harvard University. 

Feb. 2

Elliott Young: Criminalizing Migration and Indefinite Detention: Chinese at Angel Island and McNeil Island Prison

Zoom Webinar

4pm-6pm

Organized by Prof. Leti Volpp, Director of the Center for Race and Gender

Elliott Young

Professor of History, Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon

Feb. 21

Last Hoisan Poets read Chinese poetry of Angel Island detainees

Tilden Room, MLK Student Union, UC Berkeley

5pm-7pm

Co-sponsored by Arts Research Center

The Last Hoisan Poets read the moving poems that were carved into the walls of the detention barracks by immigrants incarcerated at the Angel Island Immigration Station. The poems were read in the Hoisan-wa dialect of the immigrants, as well as in translation. Some of these poems were also featured as lyrics in the Angel Island Oratorio by Huang Ruo.

Feb. 23

Nayan Shah: Bodily Defiance and Immigrant Detention

Zoom Webinar

4pm-6pm

Organized by Prof. Leti Volpp, Director of the Center for Race and Gender

Nayan Shah

Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity and History, University of Southern California.

Feb. 22 - March. 21

Emergenc(y): Afghan Lives Beyond the Forever War

February 22 – March 21, 2023. 

Worth Ryder Gallery, UC Berkeley

116 Anthropology + Art Practice Building

Sponsored by the Department of Art Practice


“Emergenc(y): Afghan Lives Beyond the Forever War” is rooted in the idea that art has the power to shed light on today’s most pressing social justice issues through documenting and constructing history in ways that touch our deepest emotions. Emergenc(y) seeks to shed light on artistic expression from Afghanistan and its global diaspora around the lived experience of 20 years of occupation, displacement, and the disorientation of life in the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Curated by Gazelle Samizar. Co-sponsored by the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association.

Mar. 2

Claire Meuschke: Lunch Poems

LUNCH POEMS READING: 12:10 – 1 pm

Morrison Library (located in Doe Library), UC Berkeley

CRAFT TALK & CONVERSATION: 4 – 5:15 pm

Hearst Field Annex D23 (ARC)

Presented by the Arts Research Center & the English Department with support from Engaging the Senses Foundation, Dr. and Mrs. Tom Colby, the UC Berkeley Library, The Morrison Library Fund, and the dean’s office of the College of Letters and Science.

Fall 2022 Events

Sept. 2 - Dec. 2

Fall Speaker Series: Landscapes of Migration, Incarceration and Resistance

Fridays, 11:30 am to 1 pm

Osher Theater, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), 2155 Center Street, Berkeley

Organized by:

Susan Moffat, Creative Director, Future Histories Lab

Executive Director, Global Urban Humanities Initiative

Lisa Wymore, Professor of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies

Faculty Advisor, Arts + Design Initiative

Sept. 3 - Dec. 18

Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration

September 3–December 18, 2022

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)


Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration considers the foundational roots of confinement from philosophical, sociological, theological, and art historical perspectives to better understand the fact that today’s mass incarceration crisis has been centuries in the making. This exhibition traces images from history that contribute to the entrenched cultural beliefs associated with today’s carceral system.

Sept. 1 - Sep. 11

In the Movement

September 1, 2022 – September 11, 2022

Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center and Lenora Lee Dance presents The World Premiere of In the Movement by the award-winning company, Leonora Lee Dance.B.Way Theater

In the Movement is a heartfelt and explosive dance piece focusing on the separation of families and mass detention of immigrants as forms of incarceration. It serves as a meditation on reconciliation and restorative justice, speaking to the power of individuals and communities to transcend.

Sept. 15 - Sept. 25

Apparatus of Repair

Presented by Flyaway Productions

UC Hastings College of the Law

September 15, 2022 – September 25, 2022

The culmination of the Decarceration Trilogy, an ambitious series of site-specific aerial dance and public art events addressing the devastating effects of mass incarceration in the United States.

Oct. 15

On the Same Page x Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA) present: San Francisco Chinatown Walking Tour

October 15, 2022, 11am-1pm

Organized by On the Same Page, UC Berkeley’s way of welcoming our new students into the intellectual community. Each year, we feature a book, theme, or other work of art to provide the focus of a range of events, courses, and activities that bring our new students into contact with each other and our faculty. This year’s featured book is INTERIOR CHINATOWN by Charles Yu.

Oct. 22

Illegal: A New Musical

Selections from Illegal, a new musical from Skyler Chin and Sita Sunil

Angel Island Immigration Station Detention Barracks Museum

October 22, 2022

ILLEGAL is a new musical created and performed by Skyler Chin, co-composed by Sita Sunil, and featuring Catherine Gloria. The show is inspired by family secrets and poetry etched into the walls of Angel Island during Chinese Exclusion. With a professional AAPI cast, colorful characters, rap, song, comedy, and drama, ILLEGAL entertains as it shines a light on a dark chapter in history and on the fighting spirit of those who dared to become American.

Oct. 22 - 23

Community Hub: Enduring Vitality

Presented by Megan Lowe Dances as part of Epiphany Dance Theater’s 19th annual San Francisco Trolley Dances.

Willie “Woo Woo” Wong Playground, San Francisco Chinatown

October 22-23, 2022

A site-specific dance piece created for a beloved community center that has served SF Chinatown for nearly a hundred years.

Nov. 15

Colonialism is Terrible, but Pho is Delicious 

November 15, 2022, 7 pm

Post-show discussion with Prof. Lok Siu, author of The Food Truck Generation (forthcoming)

By Dustin Chinn, Directed by Oanh Nguyen

UC Berkeley Night at the Aurora Theatre

2081 Addison Street, Berkeley