On this day
The Angel Island Immigration Station opened in San Francisco Bay; often called the 'Ellis Island of the West,' it processed-and, under the exclusion laws, often detained and interrogated-hundreds of thousands of Asian immigrants until 1940. (Shares Jan 21 with Lau v. Nichols and the Monterey Park shooting.)
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that San Francisco schools' failure to provide English-language support to Chinese-speaking students violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
A gunman killed 11 people, most of them older Asian Americans, at a dance studio during Lunar New Year celebrations in the majority-Asian city; investigators cited a personal rather than racial motive. (Shares Jan 21 with Lau v. Nichols.)
Content note: mass shooting.