The Chinese in America

by Iris Chang

  43 “I had no money to keep Christmas with”: Charles Dobie, p. 50, as cited in James Boyer, p. 119.

  43 tied the Chinese to trees: Pauline Minke, p. 46.

  43 “I was sorry to have to stab the poor fellow”: Vardis Fisher and Opal Laurel Holmes, p. 261; Charles Dobie, p. 50.

  43 runners to sprint from one village to the next: Pauline Minke, p. 47.

  43 Maidu Indians: Gunther Barth, p. 145.

  44 “no black or mulatto person”: Charles J. McClain, “California’s First Anti-Chinese Laws,” p. 100.

  44 “same type of human species”: Ibid., pp. 101, 140. The full text of Murray’s opinion can be found in Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed., “Chink!,” pp. 3-43.

  44 “soon see them at the polls”: Charles J. McClain, “California’s First Anti-Chinese Laws,” p. 101. Also, People v. Hall case file, October 1, 1854, California State Archives, Sacramento.

  44 “Any failing to comply”: Diane Mei Lin Mark and Ginger Chih, A Place Called Chinese America, p. 32.

  45 In El Dorado County, white miners torched Chinese tents: Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee, Longtime Californ’: A Documentary Study of an American Chinatown (New York: Pantheon, 1972, 1973), p. 37.

  45 “opened the way for almost every sort of discrimination against the Chinese”: Elmer Clarence Sandmeyer, The Anti-Chinese Movement in California (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991; original edition published in 1939), p. 45.

  45 picked over abandoned claims: The historical record suggests that the Chinese miners were extremely thorough. As one contemporary observed, “When a Chinaman gets through going over the diggings with a comb, there ain’t enough gold left to fill a bedbug’s mouth.” Nelson Chia-Chi Ho, “Portland’s Chinatown: The History of an Urban Ethnic District,” in Paul D. Buell, Douglas W. Lee, and Edward Kaplan, eds., The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (The National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1984), p. 31.

  45 Ah Sam: Autobiography of Charles Peters, pp. 143-45, as cited in Gunther Barth, Bitter Strength, p. 116.

  45 dilettante ancestors: For example, interview with Rodney Chow, #149, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.

  45 Wong Kee: Sue Fawn Chung, “Destination: Nevada, the Silver Mountain,” Origins & Destinations: 41 Essays on Chinese America, p. 119.

  46 First ship to sail from Canton: H. Brett Melendy, Chinese and Japanese Americans (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984), p. 15; Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California, Vol. 7 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1890), p. 336.

  46 “two or three ‘Celestials’ ”: San Francisco Star, April 1, 1848.

  46 325 Chinese arrived: Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Little, Brown, 1989; reprinted by Penguin Books, 1990), p. 79.

  46 450 in 1850: Ibid., p. 79.

  46 90 percent quickly moved to rural mining camps: Laverne Mau Dicker, The Chinese in San Francisco: A Pictorial History (New York: Dover Publications, 1979), pp. 355-370, as cited in Qingsong Zhang, “Dragon in the Land of the Eagle: The Exclusion of Chinese from U.S. Citizenship, 1848-1943,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1994, p. 196.

  46 Information on “little China” in San Francisco: Christopher Lee Yip, “San Francisco’s Chinatown: An Architectural and Urban History,” Ph.D. dissertation in architecture, University of California at Berkeley, 1985, pp. 85, 90-94; Chin-Yu Chen, “San Francisco’s Chinatown: A Socio-Economic and Cultural History, 1850-1882,” Ph.D. dissertation in history, University of Idaho, 1992, p. 27; Curt Gentry, The Madams of San Francisco, p. 55.

  47 more than 2,716 new immigrants: Chin-Yu Chen, p. 29.

  47 by 1852 the number had jumped to more than twenty thousand: Ibid., p. 29.

  47 gathering of some three hundred Chinese: San Francisco Daily Alta California, December 10, 1849.

  48 Description of Chinese restaurants: Christopher Lee Yip, pp. 144-46; Otis Gibson, The Chinese in America, pp. 70-71; Chin-Yu Chen, p. 95.

  48 “The best eating houses”: William Shaw, Golden Dreams and Waking Realities (1851), as cited in Jack Chen, The Chinese of America, p. 57.

  48 chop suey: National Public Radio, All Things Considered transcript 2320-9, August 29, 1996; Robert Cross, “Chop Suey: Alive and Selling Well in American Restaurants; Beginnings of the Cuisine Lost, but Popularity Remains High,” Chicago Tribune, February 11, 1988.

  49 twelve dollars for a dozen shirts: Jack Chen, p. 58.

  49 four months: Ibid., p. 58.

  49 Wah Lee: Paul Siu, The Chinese Laundryman: A Study in Social Isolation (New York: New York University Press, 1987), p. 46.

  49 curio stores: J. D. Borthwick, Three Years in California (Oakland, Calif.: Biobooks, 1948), p. 61, as cited in Chin-Yu Chen, pp. 28-29.

  49 “mere shells”: San Francisco Daily Alta California, November 22, 1853, as cited in Christopher Lee Yip, p. 86.

  49 $200 a month: The Oriental, as cited in Chin-Yu Chen, p. 28.

  50 Gold Hills News: Gold Hills News, May 4, 1868, in Chin-Yu Chen, pp. 28, 41.

  50 “It is a little singular”: Edward C. Kemble, A History of California Newspapers 1846-1858. Reprinted from the Supplement to the Sacramento Union of December 25, 1858 (Los Gatos, Calif.: Talisman Press, 1962), p. 161.

  50 from a prefabricated kit: L. Rodecap, “Celestial Drama in the Golden Hills,” California Historical Quarterly, 23:2 (June 1944), p. 101, as cited in Christopher Lee Yip, p. 149.

  50 “two or three months are generally consumed”: Otis Gibson, The Chinese in America, pp. 78-79.

  51 prominent place in the memorial procession: Theodore Hittel, History of California, Vol. 4 (San Francisco: N. J. Stone, 1898), pp. 98-99, as cited in Charles J. McClain, “California’s First Anti-Chinese Laws,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1995, p. 88.

  51 Mayor John Geary: San Francisco Daily Alta California, May 12, 1851, p. 2.

  51 “China Boys will yet vote at the same polls”: San Francisco Daily Alta California, May 12, 1851, as cited in Victor Low, The Unimpressible Race: A Century of Educational Struggle by the Chinese in San Francisco (San Francisco, California: East/West Publishing Company, 1982), p. 2.

  51 “Many have already adopted your religion as their own”: Mary Roberts Coolidge, Chinese Immigration (New York: Henry Holt, 1909), p. 55. Also in Victor Low, p. 2.

  51 “morally a far worse class”: San Francisco Daily Alta California, May 21, 1853, p. 2, as cited in Victor Low, pp. 2-3. Also in H. Brett Melendy, Chinese and Japanese Americans, p. 30.

  52 “How long, sir”: Qingsong Zhang, Ph.D. dissertation, 1994, p. 46.

  Chapter Five. Building the Transcontinental Railroad

  55 Eight hundred laborers: Tzu-Kuei Yen, “Chinese Workers and the First Transcontinental Railroad of the United States of America,” Ph.D. dissertation, St. John’s University, 1976, p. 34.

  55 “unsteady men, unreliable”: David Haward Bain, Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad (New York: Viking, 1999), p. 208.

  55 close to fifty thousand: John Hoyt Williams, A Great and Shining Road: The Epic Story of the Transcontinental Railroad (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), p. 95.

  55 hired fifty Chinese anyway: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 33.

  56 “I will not boss Chinese!”: Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, eds., A History of the Chinese in California: A Syllabus (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1969), p. 44.

  56 four feet ten ... and weighed 120 pounds: Stephen E. Ambrose, Nothing Like It in the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 150.

  56 race of people who had built the Great Wall of China: John Hoyt Williams, pp. 96-97; Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, Makin’ Tracks: The Story of the Transcontinental Railroad in the Pictures and Words of the Men Who Were There (New York: Praeger, 1975), p. 27.

  56 “quiet, peaceable, patient”: Southern Pacific Relations Memorandum, The Chinese Role in Building the Central Pacif
ic, January 3, 1966. Also Charles Nordhoff, California, A Book for Travelers and Settlers (New York, 1873), pp. 189-90. Both cited in Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 45.

  56 “dregs” of Asia: Tzu-Kuei Yen, pp. 40-42.

  56 “I like the idea”: William Deverell, Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad, 1850-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 15. Also Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 243.

  57 Central Pacific recruitment tactics: David Haward Bain, Empire Express, p. 331. Charlie Crocker hired a Chinese artist to engrave the recruitment information onto woodblocks and printed 5,000 handbills, which were posted in China and California.

  57 “inherent and inalienable right of man”: Erika Lee, “Enforcing and Challenging Exclusion in San Francisco: U.S. Immigration Officials and Chinese Immigrants, 1882-1902,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1997 (Brisbane, Calif.: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1997), p. 3.

  57 transported by riverboat to Sacramento: Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 161.

  57 organized into teams of about a dozen: David Haward Bain, p. 221.

  57 foreman: Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 44.

  57 special ingredients like cuttlefish: Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, Makin’ Tracks, p. 32.

  57 slept in tents: Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 45.

  57 employ more than ten thousand Chinese men: Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretative History (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1991) p. 30.

  57 “persecuted not for their vices”: Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 153.

  58 “always outmeasured the Cornish miners”: Charlie Crocker’s testimony, November 25, 1876. Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. Crocker also said of the Chinese, “They are very trusty; and they are very intelligent, and they live up to their contracts.”

  58 “I think we were paying $35 a month and board to white laborers”: cited in David Haward Bain, p. 222.

  58 “damned nagurs”: David Haward Bain, p. 222.

  58 driving the Chinese off the job: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 36.

  58 ten barrels of gunpowder: John Hoyt Williams, p. 115.

  59 handheld drills: Neill C. Wilson and Frank J. Taylor, Southern Pacific: The Roaring Story of a Fighting Railroad (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), p. 18.

  59 porphyritic rock: John Hoyt Williams, p. 115.

  59 seven inches a day: Ibid.; Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, p. 40.

  59 a million dollars for each mile of tunnel: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 126.

  59 several shifts of men: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 129; Neill C. Wilson and Frank J. Taylor, p. 19.

  59 nitroglycerin: Neill C. Wilson and Frank J. Taylor, p. 18. Also, John Hoyt Williams, p. 133.

  59 an ancient method used to create fortresses: Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 156.

  60 salt beef, potatoes, bread: Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, p. 32.

  60 fresh boiled tea: Ping Chiu, Chinese Labor in California, 1850-1880: An Economic Study (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin for the Department of History, University of Wisconsin, 1963), p. 49; Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, p. 32.

  60 “not having acquired the taste of whiskey”: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 35.

  60 “a sort of hydrophobia”: John Hoyt Williams, p. 98. Original citation: Pamphlet by B. S. Brooks, The Chinese in California, San Francisco, possibly 1876. Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley.

  60 thirty-foot drifts: John Hoyt Williams, p. 130.

  60 “Homeric winter”: John Hoyt Williams, p. 143.

  60 eighty feet high: Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, p. 52.

  Power snowplows: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 123.

  60 Sheds: Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, p. 52.

  60 horses broke the icy crust: John Hoyt Williams, p. 143; Original citation: George Kraus, High Road to Promontory (Palo Alto, Calif.: American West Publishing Company, 1969), p. 148.

  60 Norwegian postal worker: John Hoyt Williams, p. 144.

  60 carved a working city under the snow: John Hoyt Williams, pp. 143-44. Also Wesley S. Griswold, A Work of Giants (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), pp. 191-92.

  61 “a gang of Chinamen”: Dutch Flat Enquirer, December 25, 1866, as cited in Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 45.

  61 corpses still standing erect: Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore, p. 86; Railroad Record, October 31, 1867, p. 401, as cited in John Hoyt Williams, p. 161.

  61 Landslides: John Hoyt Williams, p. 115.

  61 Melting snow: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 121.

  61 plummet to 50 degrees below zero: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 132.

  61 soar above 120: John Hoyt Williams, p. 208.

  61 twelve-hour shifts: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 37.

  61 on Sundays: Origins & Destinations: 41 Essays on Chinese America, p. 125.

  61 two-thirds those of white workers: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 111.

  61 a fourth those of white foremen: Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 130.

  61 allocation for feed for horses: Ibid., p. 130.

  62 endured whippings: Ibid., p. 38; Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 241. The historical record suggests that Strobridge had difficulty viewing the Chinese as human beings. “I used to quarrel with Strobridge when I first went in,” Crocker told a biographer. “Said I, ‘Don’t talk so to the men—they are human creatures—don’t talk so roughly to them.’ Said he, ‘You have got to do it, and you will come to it; you cannot talk to them as though you were talking to gentlemen, because they are not gentlemen. They are about as near brutes as they can get.’ ” (David Haward Bain, p. 208.)

  62 brink of bankruptcy: John Hoyt Williams, p. 181; Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 28.

  62 two thousand Chinese in the Sierras walked off the job: Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 45.

  62 a list of demands: Tzu-Kuei Yen, pp. 130-31; Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 46. According to Chinn, Lai, and Choy, the workers demanded a raise to forty dollars a month and a reduction of work to ten hours in the open and eight hours in the tunnels.

  62 circulated ... a placard: Tzu-Kuei Yen, pp. 130-31.

  62 an attempt to recruit ten thousand recently freed American blacks: John Hoyt Williams, p. 181.

  62 cut off the food supply: John Hoyt Williams, p. 181.

  62 strike lasted only a week: Tzu-Kuei Yen, pp. 39, 130-31.

  62 raise of two dollars a month: Ping Chiu, p. 47

  62 “If there had been that number of whites in a strike”: Stephen E.

  Ambrose, p. 242. 63 Description of Irish harassment and Chinese retaliation: Tzu-Kuei

  Yen, pp. 143-44. 63 ten miles of track a day: David Haward Bain, p. 639.

  63 wager $10,000: Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 348. A witness to the competition raved about the Chinese, “I never saw such organization as this; it is just like an army marching across over the grounds and leaving a track built behind them.” (Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 350.)

  63 690 miles of track: “Condition of the Union Pacific Railroad.” Letter from the Secretary of the Interior, Transmitting Report of Isaac N. Morris, one of the Commissions appointed to examine the unaccepted portions of the Union Pacific Railroad. June 3, 1876, Referred to the Committee on the Pacific Railroad. June 20, 1876, Ordered to be printed. Forty-fourth Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 180.

  63 1,086 miles: Ibid.

  64 one thousand Chinese railroad workers died: An estimated 1,200 Chinese died out of 10,000 to 12,000 Chinese workers. (The Asian American Almanac, p. 46; Connie Young Yu, “Who Are the Chinese Americans?,” in Susan Gall, managing ed., and Irene Natividad, executive ed., The Asian American Almanac: A Reference Work on Asians in the United States [Detroit: Gale Research, 1995]; Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, 28.) The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, p. 219, gives the figure of 12,000 to 14,000 Chinese workers. William Chew, a descendent of a transcontinental railroad worker, found through his research that on avera
ge for every two miles of track laid, three Chinese laborers died in accidents (Salt Lake Tribune, May 11, 1999).

  64 twenty thousand pounds of bones: Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora (New York: Kodansha America, 1994), p. 55.

  64 journey back to the Sierra Nevada to search for the remains of their colleagues: Connie Young Yu, “John C. Young, A Man Who Loved History,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1989 (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1989), p. 6.

  64 excluded from the ceremonies: Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans, p. 31.

  64 laid off most of the Chinese workers: Ibid., p. 32.

  64 refusing to give them even their return passage: Ibid.

  64 retained only a few hundred: Ibid., p. 32.

  64 converted boxcars: Origins & Destinations: 41 Essays on Chinese America, p. 129.

  Chapter Six. Life on the Western Frontier

  66 whites were paid seven dollars a day, the Chinese only two dollars or less: Leigh Bristol-Kagan, “Chinese Migration to California, 1851-1882: Selected Industries of Work, the Chinese Institutions and the Legislative Exclusion of a Temporary Work Force,” Ph.D. dissertation in history and East Asian languages, Harvard University, 1982, p. 38.

  66 “shaking, toothless wrecks”: Edwin Clausen and Jack Bermingham, Chinese and African Professionals in California: A Case Study of Equality and Opportunity in the United States (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), p. 14.

  67 austere Chinese work ethic all but disappeared: Madeline Y. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home, p. 42.

  67 “when the ships occasionally cannot [sail]”: Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 42.

  67 “simple, reverential, and thrifty”: Zhiqiu Pan, Ningyang Cundu (Ningyang deposited letters) (Toishan: n.p., 1898), as cited in Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 40.