150th Ann'y: Chinese railroad workers get their due in photo exhibit and in Hell on Wheels

One of the photos shows the Chinese workers laying down tracks for the transcontinental railroad.

YOU HAVE probably seen the historic 150-year old photo when the Golden Spike was driven into the ground completing America's first transcontinental railroad line: Two trains facing each other and hordes of men congratulating each other posing for the photograph. Looking at the original black-and-white photograph closely and you would think the engineering feat was done only by the Irish.

The last few rails completing the railroad were laid down by eight Chinese railroad workers. Where are the Chinese workers in the famous historical photograph?

This month, Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a photo display opened up at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. Mayor Kevin Johnson, former NBA star, welcomed a delegation from the Chinese consulate general in San Francisco to help celebrate and commemorate the 150th anniversary the transcontinental railroad and the contribution of thousands of Chinese workers who toiled, dug and blasted their way eastward over the Sierra Nevada and who worked for the Central Pacific Railroad. They eventually met up in Promontory Point, Utah with the work crews coming from the east made up mainly of the Irish and African American workers employed by the Union Pacific Railroad.

I don't know if this was planned five years ago, but this year, the 150th anniversary of the engineering feat, is also the 5th and final season of AMC's Hell On Wheels television series depicting the building of the railroad. The show will finally feature Chinese workers. Oh, the irony.

When the show first started, producers received a lot of flack about omitting the Chinese story. The producers' explanations about cost and limited budget didn't satisfy the critics but this next season, the producers hope to remedy that.

AMC's 'Hell on Wheels' focused on the Irish and African American work crews

"We have three new major characters," said the show's executive producer John Wirth in an interview with the "Calgary Herald." They are primarily coming into the story on the Central Pacific side of the story. There are two sides of the railroad and we’ve spent the last four years exploring exclusively the Union Pacific side of the railroad. 

"We have some Chinese characters and that is what is new this season. There were 15,000 Chinese workers working for the Central Pacific railroad. There were no Chinese labourers on the Union Pacific side of the railroad. But they were primarily responsible for building the California side. So we are going to meet three guys that represent three different type of characters that you would find in Chinese workforce."

Gee, thanks. 

Two of the three Chinese roles have been cast.

Byron Mann  play the role of Chang, an influential businessman and labor contractor who works for the Central Pacific. The Hong Kong-raised American actor and UCLA grad is best known for his role as Ryu in Street Fighter and Yao Fe in the TV serial Arrow.

Tzi Ma was born in Hong Kong and raised in New York City. The actor plays Tao, who comes from a village in Guangdong in Southern China, and is now “head man” for a group of Chinese railroad workers. A graduate of a British engineering school in China, his natural leadership abilities and facility with the English language make him essential to his white bosses.

The Sacramento exhibit includes 122 photos depicting the Chinese workers, their camps, stores and the engineering feats that they accomplished. Hundreds of them died laying the 690 miles of track from Sacramento through the Sierra Nevada to Utah’s Promontory Summit, a job that lasted from 1865 to 1869.

Stanford University  is putting together a bigger collection for the sake of historical accuracy with the Chinese Railroad Workers of North America Project. Besides photos, the project will include archeological artifacts and interviews with the railroad workers' descendants.

Not a Chinese worker in sight in this famous 1869 photo of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah.