The By Sea arc was initially intended to follow the movement of things across the globe in order to study maps, trade routes, and transportation. But current events in the winter of 2017 with a new president, travel bans, and increasing action at the southern border, the arc became a more pointed study of human migrations both current and historical. Their collaborator Melissa tells the story:

With immigration such a hot topic and our city’s proximity to Angel Island history and history of immigration, the Teal and Violet bands (ages 10 and 11) looked into the experiences of the Chinese immigrants of the late 1800s and early 1900s. We explored their stories through a number of lenses, reading historical fiction, visiting both Angel Island and Chinatown, and building empathy through math provocations.

We began our exploration by reading Laurence Yep’s book, The Dragon’s Child, the story of a father and son’s immigration journey from China to San Francisco. The students had the opportunity to read about the experience of a child their age. They built perspective through a number of group discussions and reflecting of the experience of the various characters. They practiced note-taking, both individually and as a group, focusing largely on the characters’ experiences and emotions. 

Building on the historical fiction of the The Dragon’s Child, the students also explored a number of first hand documents, ordinances, and photos from Chinatown during that time. They made comparisons between the book and the documents and came to a number of conclusions around the experience and mistreatment of the immigrants. One ordinance that stood out in particular was the Cubic Air Ordinance from 1878, requiring 500 cubic feet of air in a room for each occupant of Chinatown’s boarding houses.

Field trips to Angel Island’s Immigration Station and Chinatown provided opportunities to see firsthand the environments and conditions that immigrants lived in. While at Angel Island’s Immigration Station, the students observed the poor conditions immigrants were held in as they waited for entry to the United States. They observed and reflected on the numerous poems carved into the walls and the belongings displayed on a number of the bunks. Having been so intrigued by the Cubic Air Ordinance, the students measured out the main bunk room and took count of the number of bunks it could hold to later explore if it met the ordinance.

Our tour of Chinatown continued the physical tour of the stories of the immigrants we had been reading about. The students were particularly affected by seeing the SROs (Single Room Occupancy units) that the Cubic Air Ordinance truly targeted. They shared their sympathy for those who lived in such tight quarters and with minimal resources through conversation and a reflective drawing exercise. 

Using what they learned from the first hand documents, The Dragon’s Child, and their field trips, each student wrote a historical diary from the perspective of a Chinese immigrant at that time or some other key player in their immigration process, such as an Angel Island guard. These diary entries expressed both what the students learned during their exploration, as well as the perspective and empathy they built.

The Cubic Air Ordinance continued to pop up in our exploration and even after all perspective-taking work we had done, it was this ordinance and a math provocation that led to the most empathy building experience. Using the measurements of the main bunkroom at the Angel Island Immigration Station, the count of the number of bunks it could hold, and the skills they had built around volume calculations and division, the students calculated the cubic air the space provided each person if every bunk was occupied. They were shocked to see how far under the 500 cubic feet of air the room provided each occupant and even more shocked to calculate that the room would need to be another 70 feet longer to meet the ordinance.