These two commemorative banners record the history of Chinese’s contributions to the construction of the transcontinental railroad. I wrote this historical fact in Chinese calligraphy on traditional Asian paper. I picked a light brown paper and a brilliant red paper.  Light brown paper is commonly utilized in traditional Chinese art; red is also a shade frequently used in Chinese calligraphy, particularly during the Chinese New Year, when Spring couplets are written on red paper and attached to both sides of doors and above lintels to pray for prosperity, peace and good fortune in the coming year.  It was during the Chinese New Year when I was creating this work.  Out of nostalgia, I chose this red paper to pray for my homeland.  Additionally, I attributed the meanings of "passion" and "blood" to this color, to commemorate those Chinese workers who sacrificed their lives in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.

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In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, tasking them to build a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west.  In 1865, when the Central Pacific company had a hard time hiring and retaining enough white railroad laborers, they began hiring Chinese workers. The Chinese provided a vast pool of cheap, plentiful, hardworking, and reliable labor. Eventually, upwards of twenty thousand Chinese workers formed the majority (90 percent) of the Central Pacific Railroad workforce.  The Chinese workers overcame extremely harsh challenges in the Sierra Nevada mountains and in the broiling Utah desert. They blasted rock, opened tunnels, and sacrificed the lives of more than a thousand, to achieve the successful construction of the Central Pacific Railway. 

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On May 10, 1869, when the railways from the east and west were finally connected at Promontory, Utah, a crowd of workers and dignitaries watched as the final spike was driven linking the Central Pacific and Union Pacific in the “Golden Spike Ceremony.”  However, not one Chinese worker appeared in the photograph documenting the ceremony. In fact, the Central Pacific Railroad tried to exclude the Chinese out of history altogether. This Golden Spike Ceremony photograph “is a graphic metaphor for the ways that the Chinese were excluded from the United States and the ways that their long-standing presence in this country has been erased.”  

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The thin paper is like the East Asian people’s character, soft, understated, adaptable, resilient, although full of unique styles. The way how the banners were created and hung, serve as if the Tibetan prayer flags, carry the story to all corners of the world.

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The original texts are from Iras Chang’s The Chinese in America and Gordon H. Chang’s Ghosts of Gold Mountain-The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad.