Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images
Historians claim that the Chinese who began arriving in the United States in significant numbers during the California gold rush of 1848-1864, were deemed too weak for the dangerous and strenuous work of building the railroad to Eastern California.
Hilton Obbenzinger, associate director of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University says Central Pacific Railroad director Charles Crocker recommended hiring Chinese workers after a job posting only got a few hundred responses from white workers.
According to the Chinese Railway Workers Projects, Central Pacific started with a crew of 21 Chinese workers in January 1864.
“In January of 1865, convinced that the Chinese workers were capable, the railway hired 05 Chinese workers and then to 50 more”, says the Project. “But the demand for labor increased and white workers were reluctant to do such backbreaking and dangerous work”.
Leland Stanford, president of Central Pacific, former governor of California and founder of Stanford University, told Congress in 1865 that the majority of the railway workforce was Chinese. “Without them”, he said, “it would be impossible to complete the western portion of this great national enterprise, within the time required by the Acts of Congress”.
More Chinese immigrants began to arrive in California and, two years later, around the 90 percent of the workers were Chinese.
“Hong Kong and China were as close in travel time as the eastern US,” says Chang.
His job duties included everything, from unskilled labor to blacksmithing, tunneling and carpentry, depending on the Project, and most of the work was done with hand tools.
Of course, the large number of immigrants who worked for Central Pacific and their hard work did not mean that they were well treated or well compensated for their efforts. According to the Project , Chinese workers hired at 1864 were paid $26 per month, working six days a week.
Eventually, went on an eight-day strike in June of 1867.
“The Chinese received salaries between a 30 and a 50 percent lower than whites for the same job and had to pay for their own food”, Chang says. “They also had the most difficult and dangerous work, including digging tunnels and using explosives. There is also evidence that they sometimes faced physical abuse from some supervisors. They protested this and the long hours and used their collective strength to challenge the company.”
The strike ended without wage parity after Central Pacific cut off food, transportation and supplies to Chinese living in the camps, but, says Chang, the strike was not in vain. Working conditions improved after the strike.
“They scared the leaders of the company”, he says.
Despite the contributions from Chinese workers to the construction of America’s historic infrastructure project, Chang says that their story is often forgotten.
“A lot of books about the railroad focus on the Big Four and the UP barons,” he says. “Workers, including the Irish, get little attention. Moreover, written history has marginalized the Chinese, like all other minorities”.
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