Description: This landmark volume sheds light on the lives and experiences of the Chinese workers who made up 90% of the workforce that built the Central Pacific Railroad--but who have been little understood and largely invisible in traditional accounts of the building of the First Transcontinental Railroad.
Review Quotes: "The long-awaited The Chinese and the Iron Road makes visible the previously invisible Chinese railroad workers who built America's first transcontinental railroad. They are given names, family lives, homes, spiritual beliefs, and agency. The research is astounding. The wide variety of interdisciplinary, international, and collaborative perspectives--from archaeology to family history--is revelatory and a model for future collaborative projects. This timely and essential volume preserves the humanity of the often-ignored and forgotten immigrant worker, while also uncovering just how important Chinese American railroad workers were in the making of America and its place in the world."--Erika Lee, author of The Making of Asian America