San Francisco Poets – Unhappy American

This week and next week, in honor of Asian American History month, we are interrupting our weird poetry series to shoehorn in two poems by Chinese-speaking poets. This week, we look at a poem by an unnamed poet who was jailed by immigration officers in San Francisco on Angel Island and writes of his mistreatment.

Here is his poem in Lee’s Translation of his poem (not Hom’s):

I came to America, stepped foot on her shore, 

I have been stranded here for more than a year. 

In this, I have suffered ten thousand torments, 

am I making up for how low I fell in a past life, or what?

This is detestable, 

how many times they have bullied me.

If only my country was strong it could retaliate against my enemies

and send troops [here] as Japan did in attacking Russia. 

And here is the original:

來美經抵步。被困1年有多。

個中萬折又千磨。 前世吾修折太墮。

真可惡。屢逢佢欺負。 

但願國強仇報復。與兵恰似日戰俄。

For more of these poems, check out Marlon Hom’s Songs of Gold Mountain.