Publicity still of actors Ping Wu (left), in the role of Lee, and Joan Chen as Mei Lai and Rosalind Chao as Ku Ling (right) in the 1985 American Playhouse’s television adaptation of Genny Lim's 1980 play, “Paper Angels.”

This television adaptation of Genny Lim's play dramatizes a chapter in the history of the Chinese immigrant experience in America. Set in the early 1900s, the program recounts the experiences of the men and women detained at the immigration station on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. The new arrivals express their hopes and anxieties as they try to reconcile their Chinese heritage with their new lives in California.

Aired on PBS on Monday, June 17, 1985 at 9:00pm.