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Golden spike sesquicentennial9/17/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() A couple years ago, Kwan, a judge in Utah, received an anonymous note telling him he should “get sent back to China.” That kind of erasure is all too common and has contributed to the stereotype that Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners, say activists and academics. Michael Kwan’s great-great-grandfather labored on the railroad, but his story, and even his name, have been lost to history. We are expanding the lens to see the workers who built the railroads, not just the industrialists,” said Max Chang, a board member of Spike 150, the volunteer committee that partnered with the park to organize the celebration there and is also coordinating commemorative events elsewhere in Utah. “I always say a picture may be worth a thousand words, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. With heightened public attention during the sesquicentennial, organizers and park officials have been working to correct the record with exhibits, performances and other activities - both at the historic site, where a three-day-long anniversary event took place in May, and around the state. Thanks to decades of efforts by community leaders, activists and workers’ descendants, the stories of thousands of Chinese immigrants who helped build the railroad are beginning to come to the fore. On the 150th anniversary of the completion of the rail line, it’s no longer necessary to stage guerrilla actions to highlight the contributions of Chinese laborers. camera icon ALFRED A HART/STANFORD UNIVERSITY “In actuality, we’re reclaiming American history, and the Chinese contribution is part and parcel of that.”īuilt between 18, the Transcontinental Railroad extended the existing eastern railway network, from outside Omaha, Nebraska, to Oakland, California. “Some people would say, we’re reclaiming Chinese American history,” Lee said. ![]() He characterizes these works as acts of “photographic justice.” Lee - the self-described “undisputed unofficial Asian American photographer laureate” - has taken pictures of Chinese workers’ descendants and other Asian American supporters in front of the locomotives and a natural formation now known as the Chinese Arch because of its location near a former Chinese work camp. In 2002, and then every year since 2014, Lee and Leland Wong, the great-grandson of a railroad laborer, have hosted a flash mob of sorts to re-create the tableau at Golden Spike National Historical Park, which preserves a stretch of the railroad and the spot where the last spike was installed. That omission has long bothered journalist Corky Lee, 71, who first saw the famed photograph when he was in junior high. But the photo tells an incomplete story: None of the 20,000 or so Chinese immigrants who had risked their lives to blast granite and break through the Sierra Nevada by hand seem to be included. Engineers shake hands and pop champagne, surrounded by a cheering crowd of railroad workers. ![]() They dug 15 tunnels through pure hard granite,” Chao said.In the celebratory photograph taken after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869, two mighty locomotives from East and West meet at Promontory Summit, Utah. “These workers of Chinese ancestry blasted and chiseled their way through the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains, using manual hammer drills, pick axes and explosives. When California’s gold fields lured men away from railroad work, Central Pacific started hiring Chinese workers. Anything west of the Mississippi River required travel by wagon, a trip that could take anywhere from three to six months.Īfter the railroad was built, it took about seven days and as little as $65 to ride from New York to San Francisco. The anniversary was an occasion to commemorate “the contribution and sacrifices of the railroad workers,” including the estimated 12,000-15,000 Chinese laborers “who risked everything to make the Transcontinental Railroad a reality,” Chao said.īefore the transatlantic railroad, train travel was available from points east to as far as St. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao champions railroad workers at the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike Ceremony on May 10. ![]()
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