The Untold Stories of Invisible Immigrant Chinese Workers on the Transcontinental Railroad

Haoqing Yu.

I studied Communication, Art (with a concentration in Painting and Drawing), and Art History during my Undergraduate studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. In my junior year, I worked on a collaborative project, interviewing Asians and Asian Americans living in Seattle – including Chinatown restaurant owners and staff members on University Avenue – to understand their pandemic-related challenges and views on anti-Asian hate. This project revealed a post-pandemic increase in hate crimes, including robbery and verbal abuse. These interviews reveal how Asians and Asian Americans are often perceived as hostile, dangerous, or vectors of disease in Western societies. My commitment to addressing these issues and advocating for the rights of the Chinese community in America was further deepened by an event where the speaker mentioned “Taiwan” instead of “China.” This sparked significant controversy, leading the event organizers to apologize publicly.

That incident reminds me of the completion of the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, a massive accomplishment of America’s Manifest Destiny. For the construction of the transcontinental railroad, a total of 20,000 Chinese workers were involved, and around 1,200 Chinese workers died of avalanches, explosions, and accidents when establishing the railroad in the region of Sierra terrain near Donner Summit. However, the histories, stories, and names of Chinse migrant workers on the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad have remained in the shadows for over a century. Merely honoring the Railroad Chinese Workers as Hall of Honor Inductees is not enough to heal the historical trauma and address the deep-rooted racial issues. By digging into online archives, my research project, “The Untold Stories of the Invisible Chinese Migrant Workers on the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad,” aims to initiate a dialogue, acknowledge the absence, and make the invisible visible via storytelling. The study seeks to give form to and inspire dialogues about the invisible Chinese immigrant workers by employing arts-based research methods, including a public exhibition of a series of remixed artworks.

Drawing from the Stanford archives, the Him Mark Lai Digital Archive, inspired by Ayana V. Jackson’s exhibition “From the Deep: In the Wake of Drexciya,” and building upon the artist Zhi Lin’s past exhibition on “In Search of the Lost History of Chinese Migrants and the Transcontinental Railroad,” my research focuses on the untold stories of the invisible Chinese migrant workers on the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad. This work contributes to the literature by offering an alternative space for imagining the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad that honors the Railroad Chinese workers who built it. The research employs multimodal approaches (using two or more art forms), including traditional drawing materials (ink, graphite, charcoal, etc.) and contemporary technology (ex., Miro board, 3D virtual space) along with various art forms (ex., diagrams, black-out poetries, digital art, and text-based art), to start the dialogue and give form to the invisible Chinese migrant railroad workers.

My art exhibition utilizes websites, the physical art installation at Georgetown, and a virtual 3D online exhibition space as platforms for dissemination, creation, and interaction. Through art, we can learn, understand, and tell the lived experiences and untold stories of those invisible Chinese Migrant Railroad Workers. Art can foster community building, raise consciousness, advance public scholarship, generate multiple meanings, empower, and encourage identity exploration, emotional expression, social transformation, and imagination. Most importantly, art has unique healing abilities, drawing on visual art, poetry, literature, and more.

Visit the 3D Exhibition (Click image below for link)

3D Exhibition Navigation:
Before entering the exhibition, visitors can choose between two modes:
1) Click “Enter Exhibition” to walk through the exhibition by themselves
2) Click “Start Guided Tour,” which automatically takes you from one artwork to
another.

I recommend selecting “Enter Exhibition” and clicking on each artwork to view the
description. When navigating, use the up and down arrow keys to move forward and
backward, click and drag to rotate the camera, and click on any artwork or the floor to
jump directly to that spot.

Inside the exhibition, access additional features by clicking the menu icon in the top
right corner of the screen. Here, you’ll find options like Start Tour, List of Works,
Enter Fullscreen, About the Exhibition, and more. For the best experience, please
use Chrome or Firefox browsers.

See remixed artworks for the public exhibition held at Car Barn, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (click image below for link):

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