Beneath the Steel: Chinese Railroad Workers, Lost Histories, and Art as Remembrance

Haoqing Yu

The histories, stories, and names of Chinese railroad workers who dedicated their lives to constructing the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad have remained in the shadows for over a century. Completed in 1869, the railroad was a monumental achievement in America’s ‘Manifest Destiny’ during the nineteenth century. But despite their contributions, the Chinese laborers have not received the recognition they deserve. This project seeks to remember Chinese railroad workers via arts-based research methods (ABR). Archives are not merely repositories of the past but also products of political power. In this light, the project poses a key methodological question: How can art-making critically reconfigure the power of archives and lost history? We seek to ask questions, initiate a dialogue, acknowledge the absence, and give form to the invisible. Building upon the historical recovery work of previous scholars, we reconstruct fragmented pieces through remixed artworks. The current article highlights key artworks that demonstrate the scope and variety of a much larger project (Yu 2025b). We dedicate this work to the Chinese master railroad builders––to the great-grandfathers––whose stories and names demand remembrance.

One-Eyed Bossy Man

This eye is composed of the so-called 'names' of Chinese railroad workers, as recorded on the Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) payroll record sheets. These were not real names but fabricated versions made by the railway supervisors, parody names based on improper Chinese pronunciation. As a result, it is impossible to trace the names back to the actual individual Chinese workers. This eye symbolizes how railroad supervisors perceived and dehumanized the Chinese migrant workers whose names are lost.

Strobridge was a demanding and intimidating supervisor who had earned a reputation for being especially tough on Chinese. He was as ferocious in appearance as in temperament: an errant explosion early in the construction effort had taken out one of his eyes, and an ominous black eye patch now covered an ugly scar. The Chinese railroad workers, in their lingo, called him 'one-eyed bossy man.'

–– Chang, 2019

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Figure 14: One-Eyed Bossy Man. Haoqing Yu, June 2024.
Digital Art, Chinese Migrant Workers’ Names on CPRR Payroll Records, Festisite.

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