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.

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Figure 24: Double Happiness #1.

Haoqing Yu, 2024. Digital Art, Miro Board, Procreate, Apple pencil, 24.25 cm x 27.77 cm

For this work, I remixed a series of hand-drawn double happiness patterns based
on the decorative patterns of rice bowls excavated in both Qiaoxiang (侨乡), or Cangdong Village, and North American railroad sites (Voss et al. 2019). Double Happiness (囍), an ornamental Chinese design, is commonly associated with marriage, happiness, good fortune, and prosperity. It combines two copies of the Chinese character “joy” or “happiness” (喜). At weddings, 囍 is typically displayed
in red, symbolizing the happiness of the newlywed couple.

The colors white and blue, in contrast, carry complex and sometimes contradictory meanings in Chinese heritage. White symbolizes purity, simplicity, and beauty, but
it can also represent mourning and death. White is traditionally used in mourning rites, signifying sorrow and the end of life and sorrow (Riethmueller 2024). Blue represents immortality, renewal, spring, progress, and healing. However, in some regions of southern China, including Guangdong (where Qiaoxiang is located), blue
is associated with funeral practices, which makes it an inauspicious color (Lei 2019). In the context of this work, the pairing of blue and white evokes harmony, beauty, and elegance while simultaneously conveying a message: ‘We mourn the lost and forgotten workers.’

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