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This image depicts Ging Qui, Wong Fook, and Lee Shao, three of eight Chinese workers who worked on the last rail of the transcontinental railroad. The image was taken at the 50th Anniversary celebration of completing the transcontinental railroad in Ogden, Utah. Chinese workers played an essential part in building the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR), the western section of the first transcontinental railroad across America. The CPRR was intended to be done by Irish immigrants and other white workers, but they deemed the job to be backbreaking and hazardous work, and so there was a dearth of Caucasian workers. This leads the railroad owners to look for Chinese immigrants as their laborers. From 1865 to 1869, there were about 20,000 Chinese workers in total, 90% of the workforce for the construction. Chinese workers were not only paid less than their Caucasian counterparts, but they also had to live in tents while their counterparts had accommodations in train carts. Since the required tracks for the transcontinental railroad were laid through mountains, workers had to blast through granite cliffs, risking their lives to lay down explosives. There were accounts of people losing their lives because the basket or rope was not drawn up quickly enough as workers hanged over cliffs in baskets or rope to drill holes for explosives. The labor that the Chinese workers had to endure was dangerous and involved a lot of risks
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Audio Tour Stop 2 - Chinese Immigration History Timeline

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Audio Tour Stop 2 - Chinese Immigration History Timeline

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Audio Tour Stop 8 - Artifact 6 - Paper Sons

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Audio Tour Stop 8 - Artifact 6 - Paper Sons

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Audio Tour Stop 7 - Artifact 5 - Yellow Terror in All His Glory

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Audio Tour Stop 7 - Artifact 5 - Yellow Terror in All His Glory

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Audio Tour Stop #3 - Artifact 1 - The California Gold Rush

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Audio Tour Stop #3 - Artifact 1 - The California Gold Rush

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Audio Tour Stop 6 - Artifact 4 - Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

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Audio Tour Stop 6 - Artifact 4 - Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

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Audio Tour Stop 5 - Artifact 3 - Living Conditions of Chinese Immigrants

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Audio Tour Stop 5 - Artifact 3 - Living Conditions of Chinese Immigrants

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Artifact #6
A family photograph of William Wong taken a few years after the Exclusion Act was Passed.

The enforcement of Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had dramatic impacts on Chinese immigrants, where they could not just sit still to obey the restrictions put against them. And, so the “Paper Son” system emerges, in which young Chinese males attempted to enter the United States with purchased identity papers for fictional sons of U.S citizens. William Wong’s family was one of thousands of “paper sons and daughters”, who were the “children” of Chinese-American citizens only on paper--fraudulent documents with false names. In the family photograph, William Wong is in a standing position between the two adults. Wong’s father smiles enthusiastically on the right while his mother holds his 7-month-old sister on the right. The mother bypassed the Exclusion Act by immigrating to the United States as the “sister” of Wong’s father. An instance that further supported this system is the occurrence of an earthquake and fire of 1906, which destroyed local public records. Dating from the fire, many Chinese claimed that they were born in San Francisco. Through this process, the father then attempted to claim citizenship for his “children” born in China. The fact that such deception was practiced by thousands of Chinese immigrants entirely due to the exclusion law tells us that all the “paper sons” wanted was to emigrate to America to better their life just like the rest of the immigrants. In all, The Exclusion Act of 1882 not only established an institution that reinforced a system of racial hierarchy in immigration laws, but it also shaped a realm of power, dominance, struggle and resistance amongst the immigrant officials and the immigrants.

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Artifact #5
The Yellow Terror in All His Glory" - 11.2x 26.3 inches

Anti-Chinese sentiment began in the United States since the mid 19th century, shortly after their first arrival to the country. With the Transcontinental Railroad project being finished, it occurred to white Americans that the Chinese workers no longer had jobs. This triggered their need to use discrimination as a weapon against Chinese workers to limit competition for jobs. Consequently, a racist color-metaphor, known as “Yellow Peril” emerges to warn the society of the existential “danger” to the Western World. “The Yellow Terror In all His Glory” is a 11.2 x 12.6 inches political cartoon poster that exemplifies one of the many acts that white Americans took to begin an anti-Asian movement. This 1899 poster is a private collection at the History Department of The Ohio State University and Miami University. The poster is inclusive of both the Eastern World, represented by the Chinese man and the West with the woman on the ground. Right away, the viewer’s attention goes to the Chinese man who holds a shooting gun in his right hand and a fire torch on his left. With an evil grin on his face, the man bites down on a knife, dripping with blood that forms a pool next to the woman. The woman on the ground, on the other hand, lies weak and unconscious. Through posters, cartoons and racial slogans, Chinese men were stereotyped as heroin addicts whose presence encouraged prostitution and gambling. They were held to immoral standards by white Americans to brainwash the society of the “dangers” that they uphold when in fact the real purpose was to drive away their competitors who had the potential to take away their jobs.

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Artifact #4
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 - Page 1 of official document

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 stemmed from racially charged and greedy Americans. As the fear of being pushed out from their jobs and neighborhoods came haunting Americans, many Anti-Chinese advocates formed alliances to get the government to regulate and help subside the "negative changes" they felt were being made to the American society. The Chinese Exclusion act signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6th, 1882 limited the immigration of all Chinese people looking to go in and out of America. It was mandatory for every Chinese person traveling in and out of the country to carry a certificate that stated their status as a laborer, scholar, diplomat, or merchant. This was a significant document in history as it was the first to place restrictions on immigration in the U.S. This document took some time and thought from American presidents and Congressmen as they aimed to preserve their status with China and have a good relation with them whilst trying to enact these Anti-Chinese policies. Although this act was huge and a negative turning point for Chinese immigrants, they faced even more hardship and isolation as more acts like the Scott Act of 1888 passed after to further their exclusion. The Chinese Exclusion Act lasted 10 years until it extended another 10 years due to the 1892 Geary Act. This act was not only an act supporting Anti-Chinese policy but it made Chinese immigrants feel as if they were aliens to this new country and shattered their hopes and dreams they had come with when they first arrived to America.

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Artifact #3
Chinese settlement in the suburbs of San Francisco, California, 1856

This drawing depicts a settlement of Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco, California in the year 1856. This settlement consisted of multiple housing units for a community of Chinese immigrants. Settlements like these in the suburbs were extremely common as many new Chinese residents of America wanted to stick together and create a safe haven with familiar faces to have when they come home from work. Strenuous labor and long hours were not far from these settlements as the location was chosen based on the work opportunities nearby such as the gold mines and railroads in California. In this image, we see these dwellings as unstable and not professionally built. The asymmetry on the roofing and the awkward fencing between the houses show the eagerness and also lack of resources that the Chinese immigrants had when they first moved. Housing was more of a duty than a luxury for them as they needed a space to rest and eat before turning to their long hours of work in which they believed they could make a living off of. The dull and small houses represent the conditions in which Chinese immigrants had been placed into when they arrived into this new country. Chinese immigrants during the 19th century were hard-driven and ambitious to make their wealth and success even if it meant living in uncomfortable conditions.

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Artifact #2
Chinese Workers for the Transcontinental Railroad

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Artifact #1
California Gold Rush Mining Pan

This image depicts a mining pan used in 1848-1855 during the California Gold Rush. During the California Gold Rush, large deposits of gold were discovered in the then territory of California. The basic procedure of a mining pan was to place some gold-bearing materials, such as river gravel, into a shallow pan, add some water, and then carefully swirl the mixture around so the water and light material spilled over the side. If all went well, the heavier gold nuggets or gold dust would settle to the bottom of the pan.  The prospects of easy and plentiful wealth attracted many people from across the country and abroad such as the Chinese. Floods of Chinese immigrants came to America and left their homelands in hopes of finding wealth and prosperity. The industry was difficult as machines and technolgy had yet to be developed, hence the manual hard labor the chinese had to face.

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The Chinese experience in America began with dreams of gold, as legends of instant wealth in California lured hopeful adventurers across the Pacific Ocean. Those dreams soon lost their luster, though; they found mostly hard times and persecution and scrambled to survive in a strange country. In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work, especially in the garment industry. Chinese immigrants were particularly instrumental in building railroads in the American west, and as Chinese laborers grew successful in the United States, a number of them became entrepreneurs in their own right. As the numbers of Chinese laborers increased, so did the strength of anti-Chinese sentiment among other workers in the American economy. This finally resulted in legislation that aimed to limit future immigration of Chinese workers to the United States, and threatened to sour diplomatic relations between the United States and China.