Just over a decade ago, Stanford University quite ironically began “The Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project,” a project that sought to detail the story of Chinese immigrant workers during the early days of their presence in America. The founder of Stanford University, Leland Stanford, amassed his wealth largely due to his ownership of the Central Pacific Railroad, the first railroad to connect the US with the Pacific coast. Stanford, who was the first Republican governor of California, sided with anti-Chinese sentiments following their influx of immigration during the Gold Rush. In a message to the California legislature, Stanford stated
the settlement among us of an inferior race is to be discouraged by every legitimate means. Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population.
Anti-Chinese movements were popular at the time, as the cheap labor the Chinese provided came at odds with union and local workers who couldn’t compete at such low wages. Though Stanford was initially praised for his message, he lost support when his hypocrisy became apparent as he continued to import thousands of Chinese workers to construct his railroad. In fact, out of the over 10,000 workers in his company, 90% of them were Chinese, making him one of the biggest employers of Chinese laborers at the time. The very community he demonized and spewed hate against was the same community that made him one of the wealthiest Americans at the time–the same people who faced violent repression, slave-like working conditions, and unbridled hatred everywhere they went.
California’s American history began with the Gold Rush, and with the Gold Rush came the first transcontinental railroad, which stretched from Iowa to the San Francisco Bay. On the western portion, Stanford’s Central Pacific Railroad (CPR) company managed the 690 miles connecting the San Francisco Bay to Utah, with construction beginning in 1863. Upon completion in 1869, this railroad connected the continental United States from coast to coast, solidifying California’s entry into the union. The people who worked on this at first were largely Caucasian laborers, many of whom were civil engineers or soldiers during the American Civil War. The CPR had no shortage of experienced workers, but finding semi-skilled laborers to work on railroads was challenging–many Caucasian workers preferred working in agriculture or mining, and the dangerous conditions on the railroads turned them away. As a result, railroad companies had to find a new source of labor, and they did so by experimenting with recent Chinese immigrants. At first, there were some worries that their lack of experience and “small stature” would make the Chinese poor railroad workers, but after proving themselves as more than capable, many companies ended up prioritizing hiring Chinese laborers.
The work assigned to them was hard, grueling, and especially dangerous. Extreme weather, harsh mountain winters, brutal desert summers, and working with explosives meant that simply going to work meant dealing with a risk of death at any given moment. As many as 1,000 workers died due to labor conditions on the railroad. Of course, the workers were massively under-compensated for putting their lives on the line and making the railroad a success–the Stanford project found that the Chinese workers had a monthly salary of just $26, with a 6 day workweek. Discrimination seeped into salaries as well, with Chinese workers receiving “30-50 percent lower wages than whites for the same job and they had to pay for their own food stuffs.” The workers held an 8 day strike pin 1867, during which the CPR cut off food, transportation, and supplies to them, with no increase in wages after the event.
The railroad was eventually completed, but not without first destroying the land and Native tribes that it passed through. A celebration ensued at the meeting point of the first east and westbound trains to use the railroad–the two leaders of CPR and Union Pacific were present, as well as dozens of other attendees–but not a single Chinese worker could be found there. The work and sacrifices made by the Chinese had gone unnoticed–forgotten even. At the centennial ceremony of the First Transcontinental Railroad in San Francisco, Secretary of Transportation John Volpe acclaimed the “Americans” who “[drilled] 10 tunnels in mountains 30 feet deep in snow… [chiseled] through miles of solid granite… laid 10 miles of track in 12 hours.” And the thousands of Chinese who actually completed those tasks? They were only given a passing mention in a ceremony dedicated to one of their most significant contribution to the country’s history. It was only later in 2015 that the contributions of Chinese railroad workers were recognized by an induction into the US Department of Labor’s Hall of Fame.
Today, the Central Pacific Railroad company is defunct, being merged with Southern Pacific in 1959, and later acquired by Union Pacific in 1996. Even over a century later, the railroad sees significant use for moving freight, and it hosts passenger service for Amtrak’s California Zephyr, which connects the Bay Area with Chicago. Traveling through the Sacramento Valley and the Rocky Mountains, riders are exposed to stunning scenery and views that can only be seen on this specific train ride, making its mark as one of Amtrak’s most scenic routes. As beautiful as the train ride may be, it’s important to be reminded that its very existence was built on the backs of thousands of courageous Chinese laborers who toiled for years, fearing for their lives as they worked with explosives in freezing conditions. Their legacy may never have been truly recognized up until now–at least, not widely recognized at the time. Despite running on an anti-Chinese campaign and trying to exclude the Chinese during his administration, even Governor Stanford was swayed by the diligence of Chinese laborers, praising them for “[proving] to be Central Pacific’s salvation.”
The story doesn’t have a happy ending. When the railroad project was completed, the thousands of Chinese workers who were left without a job ended up dispersing across the US, fueling the flames of violence and discrimination, culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act. After all that work, there was hardly any reward, if there even was one in the first place. Caucasian Americans took all the credit, and the Chinese slowly began to lose more and more of their property and belongings as legislation was passed to limit their movement, residency, and citizenship, until they were left with nothing.
And Governor Stanford? He went right back to his anti-Chinese campaign when he became a senator in 1885.
(Photo Credit: Andrew J. Russell licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License)
