Join us for a screening of Felicia Lowe’s Carved in Silence, a documentary about Chinese immigrants detained at Angel Island Immigration Station which was built to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Acts.

Passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 marked the first time in the history of U.S. immigration policy that laborers were banned on the basis of race and denied the right to naturalize as citizens. It led to further restrictions affecting other immigrant groups, setting a precedent that continues to echo down to the present day. How does the past inform the present? What can we learn from history and across communities facing similar challenges?

The distinguished panelists include Judy Yung, historian and Professor Emerita of American Studies at UC Santa Cruz, Bill O. Hing, Director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic and Dean’s Circle Scholar at University of San Francisco, Lara Kiswani, Executive Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, and Marisela Esparza, Director of Immigrant Rights and Community Engagement at the Dolores Street Community Services and program manager of the San Francisco Immigrant Legal & Education Network. Felicia Lowe will serve as the moderator.

The program is co-presented by Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.

Carved In Silence, by filmmaker Felicia Lowe, reveals the virtually unknown story of the Exclusion Era -- its genesis, its reality, and it consequences. Focusing on the detention of Chinese immigrants at Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco bay, Carved in Silence translates the impact of public policies into human terms and looks closely at this legacy of a shadow that once darkened the American Dream.

Felicia Lowe is a Bay Area native and award winning independent television producer, director, and writer with 40 years of production experience. Her documentaries; Chinese Couplets, Carved in Silence, Chinatown and China: Land of My Father reveal the unique experiences of Chinese in America while underscoring our common humanity. All her films have been broadcast on PBS and are used in classrooms across the country. She recently directed Pacific Gateway, a 360 virtual reality video on Angel Island Immigration Station. Prior to producing documentaries, she was one of the first Asian female television news reporters and worked on the children’s television series, "The Electric Company." A descendent of Angel Island detainees, she has been recognized as a "Visionary" for her leadership in the preservation and restoration of this National Historic Landmark.

This program is held in conjunction with Then They Came For Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties, a special multimedia exhibition featuring imagery by noted photographers commissioned by the U.S. government's War Relocation Authority, including Dorothea Lange and Clem Albers, along with photographers Ansel Adams, Toyo Miyatake and Paul Kitagaki, Jr., as well as a range of artifacts from the period.

Gallery Hours: Wed-Sun, 10 am to 6 pm, FREE and open to the public. www.thentheycame.org

Suggested donation: $5 - $10. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Getting to Then They Came For Me:

The PresidiGo Downtown Shuttle provides FREE roundtrip service to the Presidio. The shuttle picks up at the Transbay Terminal or Embarcadero BART.

If you are driving, be sure that you are driving to the Presidio (zip code 94129), not the 100 Montgomery located downtown.

Ramp access is available at the back of the building on Taylor Road between Sheridan Road and Bliss Avenue. This building is ADA compliant.