Now through May 22, SFPublicLibrary, ChineseWorkers and the Chinatown History and Culture Association present “Silent Spikes: Following in the Footprints of Chinese Railroad Workers.”
Wong Fook, Lee Chao and Ging Cui in 1919, three of the eight Chinese rail workers who put in the last spike on the Transcontinental Railroad.
The centerpiece of the exhibition comprises 30 panels in which photographer Li Ju places his contemporary shots next to historic photographs to show the accomplishments of the 20,000 Chinese workers. Ju traveled the entire route of the Transcontinental Railroad seven times, making sure that his images’ angles and locations were historically accurate.
Chinese immigrants arrived in significant numbers during California’s Gold Rush as southeastern China endured war, famine and a poor economy. As the rush subsided, immigrants worked as farm laborers, in low-paying industrial jobs and railroad construction. The Central Pacific Railroad, a company chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1862 to lay tracks eastward from Sacramento, was initially opposed to hiring Chinese laborers but the number of white applicants was fewer than needed.
Larry Yee, a featured panelist and president of The City’s Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, says the exhibition corrects previously incomplete historical portrayals of the Chinese workers, referencing the June 1867 labor stoppage, considered the largest of the era. Chinese laborers had been grading topography and digging tunnels in the Sierras when they decided to strike in protest of inadequate pay, long hours and sordid working conditions.
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