The Forgotten Majority

Last month, the Director of the American Studies Program at Stanford, Dr. Shelley Fishkin, spoke at the U.S.-China Peoples' Friendship Association regarding her research : The Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project (See part one.) The idea for a railroad put forth by President Lincoln was necessitated by the agonizing time it took to get from west to east, the inefficiency of travel and communication. To construct the most difficult part (the stretch through the Sierra Nevada) one of the owner's, Leland Stanford, suggested using Chinese labor. See Part Two. This was an odd suggestion at the time, as Stanford had promised to get rid of the Chinese. (See Part Three.) 

It is estimated that 12-15,000 Chinese worked on and finished the railroad. (Almost twice the number of Irish, Italian, Germans employed for the Union Pacific, and an estimated 80% of labor involved in construction of Central Pacific.) 

As Leland Stanford wrote in a letter to President Johnson in 1865, “The greater portion of the laborers employed by us are Chinese…..Without them it would be impossible to complete the western portion of this great national enterprise, within the time required by the Acts of Congress.”

This Chinese labor—and the completion of the railroad-- not only created a good part of the fortune which founded Stanford University, but more importantly linked the east coast to the west coast, and made it possible to get from one end to the other in a week rather than three months. “It paved the way for new waves of settlers to travel from east to west, and provided a much less expensive way to transport goods,” said Dr. Fishkin. “The labor of the Chinese helped hasten America’s entry into the world as a modern nation.”

So one would think the Chinese participation in this important piece of history is all well documented. 
It isn’t.

(To be continued. Next: Researchers Around the World Righting a Wrong.)