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National Historic Landmark
These poems are immensely important to architectural history, because they are physical remnants that told the story of these people and their memories. After 1941, the buildings at Angel Island suffered vandalism and deterioration, which resulted in a request for demolition in 1970. However, the findings of these poem carvings on its walls and floors saved the buildings from being destroyed. Since 1983, the barracks have been open to the public, and in 1997, the station became a National Historic Landmark. This marked the first steps toward the restoration of the station, as the poems guided the barracks’ restoration work by the Architectural Resources Group. According to senior associate with ARG and the preservation planner and historian on the project, “the site wasn’t understood or interpreted until the poetry was discovered” (Busch). Today, more than 200 poems have been recovered and restored that are important pieces of Asian American history.