Competition Brief
The United States is a country of immigrants with a long history of receiving new arrivals. In 1886, the statue of “Liberty Enlightening the World” was officially unveiled, and between 1892 and 1954 the Ellis Island Immigration Station processed 12 million immigrants in New York City alone.
Angel Island, in the San Francisco Bay, was home to the West Coast Immigration Station, which was built in 1905. Unlike Ellis Island, new arrivals were housed in barracks on the island under very difficult conditions, some for extended periods of time. Until the station’s closure in 1940, the island was seen as a mechanism to exile immigrants in geo-political limbo - there was never a Statue of Liberty welcoming them.
