Railroad Westward

 We are continuing our look at lives of the forgotten and/or disenfranchised. This week we look at the memories of a young Chinese man who worked on building the Transcontinental Railroad from California toward Utah. The Central Pacific Railroad company was not able to hire enough white workers for the back-breaking work and director Charles Crocker made the decision to hire Chinese workers, starting with 21 in 1864 and then increasing the work force until 90% of the workers were Chinese. Ultimately it is thought that 15-20,000 Chinese worked on the railroad. First a little history, which you may not have gotten in school.

There were many young Chinese men in America who had come hoping to strike it rich and return to their homes to rescue their families. Drought, floods, and the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) had left Chinese peasant families destitute and desperate. By selling much of what remained of property and cattle, or by borrowing money an onerous interest rates they sent their sons on the 7000-mile voyage to Gum Sam, or "Gold Mountain." Some of the Chinese men were forced into gangs to repay their loans. Later, the railroad executives began recruiting in China and paying for the passage for more workers.

Because they traveled as cheaply as possible, the young Chinese crammed into spaces below deck near the machinery. Epidemics were common because of unsanitary conditions. These desperate young men did not plan to remain in America. They came with the goal of providing for their family. Their religious beliefs encouraged loyalty to family, village, and ancestors. They were highly disciplined and were willing to perform dangerous jobs without complaint, and they did not drink. These characteristics made them stand out in American society and caused other workers to feel threatened by their work ethic. The Chinese language, dress, and traditional braided queue of hair set them apart.

Let’s enter the story of this young Chinese man at Promontory Point, Utah, where the eastern and western parts of the railroad met on May 10, 1869.

It is done. Five years of back-breaking work. The tracks lie gleaming in the desert sun. I think about my friends and colleagues who died in the mountains, in the explosions and rockslides. Yet, I look with pride at this accomplishment.

I’m told that originally Crocker didn’t want us Chinese as workers. He thought we were too weak and too strange to do any work. I would like to confront him and ask now what he thinks. We have done a great thing. We have laid nearly 700 miles of iron track. We have moved mountains and changed the landscape. We have endured.

We came from an ancient land across a vast ocean. We traveled here in terrible conditions, breathing the smoke-filled air of the machines driving the ship. We came with hope. We came to provide for our families.

I came because my parents wanted me to be away from the war and famine at home. We heard of Gum Sam, the Gold Mountain. They sold our cow and some of our ancestral land so I could buy passage. I was luckier than some who arrived owing money to brokers, which had to be repaid, and left them prey to being forced to work in horrible conditions and do appalling things in gangs.

I soon learned that Gum Sam was as great a myth as the Basha, the snake that could swallow elephants. Even though I had never seen an elephant in my small town, I was sure that no snake could be large enough to swallow such a huge creature, which must be a myth too.

There was gold in Gum Sam, but not for such as I. The Whites already had most of the rich gold land. Some were willing to hire us for pennies to labor on their claims. Our willingness to work so that we could send money home, did make us easy to exploit. We turned a deaf ear to the slurs of “Coolie” or worse. We endured brutality so that we could survive and make some money to send home.

I’ll admit we were different. We didn’t plan to stay in this country. As soon as we could, we planned to return. We Chinese stayed together, speaking our own language, and revering our ancestors and families. We kept our traditional clothing and continued to wear our hair long in a queue, a symbol of our ethnicity.

When I heard that the new Central Pacific Railroad project was starting and looking for workers, I lined up to apply along with a few dozen White men.

I overheard one of the supervisors sneer to his neighbor. “Look at that scrawny Coolie. Thinks he can dig twelve hours a day and haul iron.” The other man laughed in response.

I returned every day, hoping for work and eventually my persistence paid off. With twenty others, I was hired. It was January 1864. We worked harder than the Irish, had better health habits, ate our own, very different food, and gradually impressed the foremen. Soon more Chinese men were hired as the rails started growing eastward.  

We worked side by side with the mostly Irish Whites. The workdays were twelve hours long. A horn blew before dawn and we labored into the night. We had one day off in seven. We got $26 a month, less the cost of our food. The Irish got free food and $35/month. I gradually noticed that we were often chosen for the hazardous work of dynamite, drilling, and working on the steep mountain sides and high trestles.

As the Chinese work force grew, the company organized squads of twenty or thirty. I was the head of my squad because I was one of the first workers. My job was to collect each man’s monthly wages, determine their share of the cost of the food, and then distribute the pay. We sometimes had to pay huge sums to get the dried oysters, cuttlefish, fruit, mushrooms, and seaweed we preferred. The fresh chicken and vegetables came in the same shipments as for the Irish so it was easier to get. I hated to subtract the cost of the food from the wages because I knew that each of us was supporting someone in China.

I also had to write the difficult letter to families when a worker died, which happened too often. There were rockslides, explosion accidents, tools that injured or killed, and illnesses that meant someone’s family would no longer receive any money. It also too often meant that their son and heir was dead and unable to carry on the name. A tragedy for a Chinese family.

In June of 1867 there were enough Chinese working on the railroad that we attempted a strike hoping our group size would reap changes. For a while, conditions were better and there was less abuse by the supervisors, although it never ended.

All through summer heat and frigid winters of 1865, 1866, and 1867 we dug and blasted and built and problem solved ways to get a railroad track and train over and through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It seemed like the granite would never end. We gave a cheer when we were finally able to look out on relatively level ground. By summer 1868 we were working across that hot, arid landscape.

On one hand the work was easier because there was less blasting and drilling, on the other it was harder because of the heat and dust storms and lack of water. It was only because of the miles and miles of track we had already laid, that supplies and food were able to reach the railroad camp.

The foremen urged greater and greater effort from all of us. I learned that we were in a race, of sorts, to see whether the train from the West or one from the East could cover the most ground. It didn’t really matter to me, but the Irish were enthusiastic about the hope of settling on some of the railroad owned land after the tracks were laid.

“Anyone can buy land from the railroad,” one enthusiastically told me. “I will make a home for my wife and kiddos.”

I thought of my own family, so far away in China. It seemed that I might never return to them. It might be good to get land here in this land, but my honor and respect for my family forbade it.

We plowed forward through 1868 and into 1869. As spring turned to summer, we could see in the distance the smoke from the west-bound train and crew. Each day we drew closer to each other. Each day we tried to lay just one more mile than the day before.

“We can outlay you any day,” each side boasted. And it wasn’t just the men, Crocker and the head of the Union Pacific company also had bets.

On April 28, we laid 10 miles 56 feet of track. It was a feat that the west bound crew never matched. It is a day I will always remember as back breaking and exhilarating. Only a couple days later, the two sections of track met at a place called Promontory Point. There was rejoicing on both sides. The Irish consumed a great deal of liquor. There was carousing and fights between men on both crews. Because we don’t drink, we stayed away from the melee and in our tents.

Today we are at that place. It is May 10, 1869. I am watching important men make speeches. A silver spike and a gold spike will be the last hammered into the railroad. I think of the men who never lived to see this moment. I look around at the rest of us, sitting or standing by our tents. We share in this triumph, even if few will see fit to mention that there were thousands of men from China who built this railroad westward across impassable mountains and impossible odds.

I may soon go home. I have money for a passage, even though I have faithfully sent funds to my family. There is a yearning to remain here, though, even if I do not feel fully welcomed. Time will tell. I do miss my family and I know they have arranged a bride for me. I know, too, that I'm not the same young man who arrived here less than a decade ago. 

Building the Transcontinental Railroad: How 20,000 Chinese Immigrants Made It Happen - HISTORY

Chinese Transcontinental Railroad Workers | Encyclopedia.com