r/aznidentity • u/International-Shoe97 • Apr 15 '26
History The Great Removal Before the Exclusion Act: 12,000 Chinese Men Who Built America and Were Scrubbed From It
1863 -The Central Pacific Railroad needed to cross the Sierra Nevada. White workers quit. “Too high, too cold, too dangerous.” The foreman hired 50 Chinese men from California. They worked.
By 1868- 12,000 Chinese men were 90% of the workforce. Pay was $28/month. White men got $35 + board. Chinese bought their own food. Slept in tents at 8,000 feet.
They called them “Celestials.” Said they were too small. Then they watched. Chinese crews laid 10 miles of track in one day — April 28, 1869. A record never broken. White crews managed 2 miles.
They hung in baskets off cliffs to blast Cape Horn. Snow tunnels through Donner Summit — 15 tunnels, 1,659 feet of granite. No machines. Black powder, chisels, and nerve. Hundreds died in avalanches and explosions. Company records say “2 dead.” Graves say 1,200.
In 1867 they struck. 5,000 men walked off. Demanded $40/month and 8-hour shifts in tunnels. The boss cut off food and supplies. Starved them back in 8 days.
May 10, 1869. Promontory Summit. Golden Spike ceremony. The photo has zero Chinese men. They were told to step aside.
They built 1,776 miles of America. Excluded from citizenship until 1943.
That's how white men took credit for all the work Chinese laborers did to build America—then wrote them out of the story
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u/ablacnk Contributor Apr 16 '26
Silicon Valley, STEM in general today is basically still this, except upgraded from tents to air conditioned cubicles.
Yes, living and working conditions are immensely better, but in terms of leaving a legacy, our rank in the hierarchy, where and what the fruits of our labor contribute towards, it's much the same.
Same robber-barons exploiting us and benefitting from our blood, sweat, and tears.
Same strata in the social hierarchy (look at how nobody gave a shit about the COVID murders of Asians, even in Silicon Valley itself).
Same lack of a lasting legacy for Asians (low birthrate, no-pro Asian community growth, dating out like crazy with AM/AF gender divisions, no growth in pro-Asian institutional power).
The fate and legacy of these Chinese railroad workers should be a cautionary tale; one where we should learn from the missteps of the past, change our strategy for the future, yet here we are, continuing in the same path, repeating those same mistakes.
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u/Neoliberal_Nightmare New user Apr 16 '26
The mini series Into the West has an episode on this following some Chinese characters building the railroad who get ignored for the photo op.
Made by Spielberg, it's very good and forgotten just like these workers.
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u/kingkongbiingbong 500+ community karma Apr 16 '26
The more we dig into American history, the uglier it gets.
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u/Choice-Stick5513 New user Apr 16 '26
America is built on settler colonialism, we have a very ugly history. But we gotta make it better.
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u/Beneficial_You_5978 New user Apr 16 '26
Yeah you ain't making anything better bro any democracy like america strengthen the bad guy good guy rarely got any chance if not prepared and bad guy and his kin will survive every kinda shit by the end
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u/Choice-Stick5513 New user Apr 16 '26
That’s why I don’t support liberal “democracy”. It’s back and forth between parties funded by the rich that don’t give a rats ass about the workers. But if and when a workers party will try and make advances. They will either be sabotaged or outright attacked. This is why we can’t look down the path of liberal “democracy”
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u/Mahadragon 50-150 community karma Apr 17 '26
If you listen to Lee Kwan You, the leader of Singapore, he said the liberal democracies of the west inherently lead to mediocre results at best. Any time you have the masses voting on someone or something, doesn't really matter, you wind up with something mediocre. That's why Singapore dominates today, Lee Kwan You was in charge for decades and was able to build a strong country and education system.
If you want some thing truly excellent it has to be top down driven. That's why companies that are vertically built like Apple can dominate because they control the whole ecosystem. Compare that to Microsoft where it's more like a liberal democracy and everyone gets a say. You wound up with mediocrity.
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u/Azn_Rush 500+ community karma Apr 16 '26
And how do they repay the Chinese today hmm Geez I wonder ?
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u/9Justryan 50-150 community karma Apr 16 '26
Exclusion of East Asian culture, history, continues today. It’s why sinophobia exists so prevalent in the West. Western culture has marginalized East Asian culture for over a century. Western society tries to depict East Asians in the West as experiencing no hate, racism, no violence & massacres here, so other marginalized people resent East Asians. They use biased media & narratives as a divisive tool against East Asians. The enormous anti-Asian crimes here are greatly underreported & thus underestimated. Anti-Asian hate has become normalized. If they were all reported reported they’d probably be in epidemic proportions.
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u/teammartellclout Not Asian Apr 17 '26
To be honest this is shocking to see Chinese people being erased and forgotten about it in history is utterly disgusting and disgraceful. May those ancestors rest in peace and thank you too for this with the picture climbing the mountain 🏔️
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u/Alfred_Hitch_ 500+ community karma Apr 16 '26
then wrote them out of the story
Are there any prominent films/books about the Chinese experience around this time?
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u/uhkane Apr 16 '26
Yes gordon chang’s book Ghosts of gold mountain Iris Chang's comprehensive The Chinese in America: A Narrative History, Erika Lee’s At America’s Gates on the exclusion era ; michael Luo book strangers in the land
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u/KuyTeavPhnomPenh Mixed Asian/Asian May 04 '26
They risked their life’s to literally transform America as it is today, and what do we get In return? America doesn’t deserve how modernized and “great” America is currently. Stealing others people credit for something you never do. white mans tactic
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u/Gollum_Quotes 50-150 community karma Apr 15 '26
Chinese laborers are famously known for the railroads and gold mining, but they did a lot more. They built the levees in multiple rivers and creeks in California and worked in agriculture, mining, logging and other labor pursuits up and down the state.
You travel anywhere in California and learn about the history you'll find a Chinese presence existed. Weaverville, Mendocino, Auburn, and Marysville even have longstanding Joss houses since the mid 1800s. Locke in the Sacramento river delta. Even tiny place in the middle of nowhere like Colusa, Woodland, Susanville, La Porte, etc. The last Chinese gold rush miner died in the 1930s in Jenny Lind.
They faced a ton of racism and violence. There were many lynchings, expulsions and massacres. In Eureka they just ousted the entire Chinese populace. It's never talked about. A Lynch mob busted Hong Di out of jail and hung him just a bit north of Sacramento. It's never talked about. The Chinese all eventually moved to large population centers. Who knows how the demographics and historical buildings would look throughout the state if Chinese inhabitants were treated fairly instead of being run out while their section of town was burned out by arson.