Rituals of the Material: Art, Activism, and Historic Preservation and the Angel Island Immigration Station in the 1970s

This paper will argue for the preservation activism around the Angel Island Immigration Station in the 1970s as ritual practices of care grounded in materiality. Setting the movement within the context of agitation for the preservation of historic sites for Chinese American history in California by Asian American activists in the 1960s and 1970s, the paper moves between events and objects around Angel Island, from the physical acts of care in cleaning the barracks and boards after their rediscovery, to yearly “pilgrimages” to the Island (related to the Japanese American pilgrimages to Manzanar), to the makings of rubbings of the poems carved into the walls (aligned with the poems’ tibishi inspirations and traditions of material circulation), to the display of the rubbings in an exhibition at the Kearny Street Workshop in 1976, organized by artist and curator Nancy Hom, that sought to create an immersive experience, reconstructing the boards of the walls with wooden boxes scavenged from Chinatown as well as exhibiting photographs by Mak Takahashi and ceramic diorama pieces. This paper will theorize preservation activism as rituals of the material, catalyzing memory and providing care for community through connections of body, space, and memory.