Surviving detainees of the Angel Island Immigration Station are sought for a major oral history project at UC Davis.

The Pacific Regional Humanities Center at UC Davis is working with Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation to find immigrants who spent time at Angel Island between 1910 and 1940.

"The idea is to preserve and interpret Angel Island Immigration Station as the Pacific gateway for U.S. immigration," humanities center director Georges Van Den Abbeele says. "We also want to promote educational activities that further the understanding of Pacific Rim immigration in American history."

He expects that it may be the immigrants' families who will need to contact the center.

Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world came through Angel Island, with the largest group being Chinese.

Van Den Abbeele believes that many of these elderly citizens now live near Sacramento and Stockton, since those were the most popular areas to settle besides San Francisco.

UC Davis students are being trained to conduct the oral interviews, and selected students who speak second languages will act as interpreters for immigrants more comfortable speaking in their native tongues.

The Pacific Regional Humanities Center was established in 2002 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The UC Davis center is a regional partner of the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center in collecting and housing oral histories for the Veterans' History Project. One of nine regional humanities centers in the nation, the UC Davis program represents California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas Islands.

To learn more about participating in the project, contact Aaron DeFranco at (530) 752-9857 or phrc@ucdavis.edu.