The Chinese who built America’s Transcontinental railroad are recognised, at last

The First Transcontinental Railroad changed America forever, but thousands of men who had toiled on the tracks were erased from history

On the 150th anniversary of its inauguration, hundreds of Chinese-Americans gather in Utah to set the record straight


Alan Chin 23 May, 2019

New York photographer and activist Corky Lee’s 2019 reenactment of the iconic 1869 photograph, but with the descendants of Chinese railroad workers and other Chinese-Americans. Photo: Alan Chin

Connie Young Yu has put forward her arguments many times. Having been invited by the United States’ National Park Service to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the inaugur­ation of the First Transcontinen­tal Railroad, the writer and historian stands on stage in Promontory Summit, Utah, before 20,000 people, and opens the commemor­a­tions: “My great-grandfather, Lee Wong Sang, was one of the thousands of unsung heroes, building the railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains, laying tracks through to Utah, uniting the country by rail.

“Many descendants of Chinese railroad workers are here today. This is a far cry from 50 years ago. [Then], my mother, Mary Lee Young, was the only such descendant present. Yet why were the Chinese denied their rightful place in history at the 100th anniversary?” Yu asks.

“Why was Philip Choy, president of the Chinese Historical Society of America, kept from making a presentation on the official programme?”

Choy, who was also an architect, was in attendance at the 1969 ceremony but was denied the five-minute address to the audience he had been promised, in which he planned to acknowledge the contribution made by Chinese labourers. It is said that his slot was instead given to actor John Wayne.

“Because the contribution of the Chinese to the Transcontinental was kept from national memory,” Yu says, answering her own question. “The Exclusion law of 1882 stopped the immigration of Chinese labourers, and denied all Chinese naturalisation to US citizen­ship.”

The iconic photograph taken by Andrew J. Russell on May 10, 1869, in Promontory Summit, Utah, after Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, ceremonially drove in the railway line’s golden Last Spike. Despite as many as 15,000 Chinese having worked on the railroad, none are pictured. Photo: Andrew J. Russell

The Chinese Exclusion Act was followed, in 1892, by the Geary Act, which was still more draconian and demonstrated the lengths to which authorities would go to expunge Chinese people from the American experience. Not only were no more Chinese labourers allowed to immigrate to the US, those already in the country were told they had to carry at all times a resident’s permit.


Failure to do so (and few did) was punishable by deportation or a year’s hard labour. “In effect, for 61 years, the law excluded the Chinese from American history.”

Standing a few feet away, listening to her remarks boom from loudspeakers, caressed by a cool breeze, tears well up in my eyes and a chill runs down my spine. As a Chinese-American, I trace my own lineage to a village not a dozen miles from that of Yu’s great-grand­father, in Toishan county, Guangdong province.

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Although my ancestors didn’t work on the American railroad, they too embarked on extraordinary parallel journeys to arrive on the New World’s shores: smuggled in the coal holds of steamships, assuming fictional identities as paper sons and suffering decades of separation from wives and children.

One hundred and fifty years ago, on May 10, 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad – a 3,077km (1,912 mile) line connecting America’s eastern rail network with the Pacific coast, on San Francisco Bay – was completed.

The rail link would revolutionise settlement of the American West as well as its economy; it would bring the western states and territories into alignment with the northern industrial states and make the transport of passengers and goods from coast to coast quicker and less expensive.

Corky Lee at the Chinese Arch, a natural formation marking the spot where Chinese railroad workers camped in 1869. Photo: Alan Chin

Through traffic began to roll after Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California (and founder of Stanford University), drove in the Last Spike.

Made of gold – it would later be referred to as the Golden Spike – it was driven home with a silver hammer here, at Promontory Summit, a desolate spot on the high plains in what was then not yet a state.

The steam locomotive, the telegraph and the photo­graph were among the most important developments of the 19th century, and all three played their part in this historic moment. News of the railroad’s completion was dissemina­ted from the site by telegram once Stanford had struck the Golden Spike.

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The soon-to-be iconic photograph of the scene, taken by Andrew J. Russell, followed, splashed across the front pages of newspapers around the world.

The picture shows dozens of railroad executives, government officials and ordinary workers surrounding two steam engines: the Central Pacific’s Jupiter from the west, on the left, and the Union Pacific’s #119 from the east, on the right. Yet despite 12,000 to 15,000 Chinese having laboured on the project from 1863 to 1869, and up to 1,000 having died while doing so, none are pictured.

Their story is part of the oral history that I and other Chinese-Americans were raised with – but official accounts scarcely mention their contribution.

Chinese railroad workers depicted in a mural on a wall in Ogden Union Station, Utah. Photo: Alan Chin
Since 2014, New York photographer and activist Corky Lee has organised an annual restaging of the 1869 photograph, in front of replica locomotives, with descendants of Chinese railroad workers and other Chinese-Americans filling the frame. This year, between 400 and 500 Chinese-Americans have made the pilgrimage, in the largest such gathering to date

“I want to pop the champagne that my grandfather could not,” says John Mark, a descendant of a Chinese railroad worker who has come from California. May Chin Ng, who has driven 3,500km (2,200 miles) from Huntington, New York, says she has come in case the sacrifice made by her ances­tral countrymen is lost “on the wayside of history”.

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Lee has to move the platform and ladder he is using several times to accommodate the chaotic and growing crowd before he can take this year’s photograph.

The joy and sense of delayed justice are palpable and moving. Yet the occasion remains primarily one of contem­porary American patriotism. The Stars and Stripes flies at many spots along the only road to Promontory and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, the first Chinese-American woman of cabinet rank, makes appropriate com­ments with anodyne phrasing: “The Central Pacific Railroad needed industrious, tireless workers and the Chinese workers answered the call with great skill and dedication.”

Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. Photo: Alan Chin

It may have been too much to expect her to mention the disciplined and non-violent strike that the railroad workers successfully executed in 1867, as they sought the same pay as their white colleagues, or the anti-Chinese massacres and pogroms in Los Angeles and Wyoming that marred the era. After all, Utah residents and railroad fans from across the country make up the bulk of the large crowd.

The multiracial theatre group that performs As One, a musical retelling of the great narrative, are wearing the wrong kind of Chinese peasant hats and Utah senator Mitt Romney seems to be already politicking for another cam­paign.

A large bronze statue of a bison is unveiled; a group of children parade around, wear­ing red neckerchiefs in an evocation of the Wild West; and a “sheriff’s posse” make for picturesque perimeter guards on horseback. The event feels like a middle American county fair rather than a cathartic coming to terms with past injustices.

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Nevertheless, “I think [the Chinese labourers] would feel so happy,” Margaret Yee tells me. She is a Chinese-American resident of Salt Lake City who had great-grand­fathers on both the paternal and maternal sides who worked on the railroad.

“They had no idea they could transform the USA. The Chinese built the railroad, and the railroad built America. Up in the sky they are smiling over us.”

Above us, the day’s celebrations conclude with four Air Force fighter jets roaring past, over bursting fireworks, as a brass band plays the national anthem.

Connie Young Yu shows her parents’ photographs from 50 years earlier. Photo: Alan Chin

Members of a “sheriff’s posse” act as perimeter guards at this year’s gathering. Photo: Alan Chin

Margaret Yee, a descendant of 19th century railroad workers. Photo: Alan Chin

A restored steam engine at Ogden Union Station. Photo: Alan Chin

Actors representing 19th century railroad workers and other characters perform a musical about the railroad’s construction. Photo: Alan Chin

Children in period costume attend the celebrations. Photo: Alan Chin

The bison sculpture Distant Thunder, by Utah artist Michael Coleman, is unveiled as part of the 2019 ceremonies. Photo: Alan Chin

Alan Chin was born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown. Since 1996, he has worked in China, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Central Asia, and Ukraine, as well as extensively in the United States. He is a contributing photographer to The New York Times and many other publications, an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and his work is in the collections of the Museum Of Modern Art and the Detroit Institute of Art. The New York Times twice nominated Alan for the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Kosovo conflict in 1999 and 2000.

How East Asians in the UK are fighting back against a rising tide of racism

Racism and prejudice

Post-Brexit bigotry was already escalating when the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a new wave of Sinophobia. Rather than retreat, the UK’s Asian community is lobbying the media, public figures and politicians to promote solidarity


Simon Parry Published:  31 May, 2020


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David Tse Ka-shing was taking his daily exercise, jogging through Soho in the heart of London, in the early days of Britain’s coronavirus lockdown in March, when he found himself at the receiving end of a racist outburst that dragged him back to the darkest times of his childhood.

The Hong Kong-born actor and director had just passed a white, female pedestrian in her early 30s at a safe distance when she barked at him to “F*** off back to China.” When Tse turned back in dismay and replied, “I’m British. How dare you?”, she yelled, “Take your f***ing virus home with you.”

For Tse, 55, who moved to England with his family at the age of six, the foul-mouthed outburst was a shocking wake-up call to a tide of racism unleashed by the coronavirus pandemic in his adopted country.

“The UK was incredibly racist when I grew up here in the 70s and 80s,” he recalls of his boyhood in the West Midlands town of Leominster. “We lived in a small market town and my parents ran a fish-and-chip shop and Chinese takeaway. Every Friday and Saturday night we used to get racist behaviour from drunken customers. They would come in to be served and at the same time abuse us.

Tse with his mother, Tse Lai Oi-lin, and father, Tse Siu-kay, outside their Golden Dragon takeaway in Leominster, in the 1980s. Photo: Red Door News

“This happened throughout my childhood because me and my siblings all worked in my parents’ takeaway when we were old enough. My parents were somewhat shielded because they were working in the kitchen, so we bore the brunt of it.

“I remember thinking, ‘Why the hell did we ever leave Hong Kong?’ I grew up on
Cheung Chau, part of a warm, loving, interconnected large community of family and friends. I had an idyllic childhood and then I arrived in this country that was cold, grey and unwelcoming.”

Tse came to believe Britain had grown more civilised and tolerant. He was the founding artistic director of the Yellow Earth Theatre, which showcases East Asian talent, and has directed productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Barbican.

The unprovoked hostility in Soho “brought out the anger in me because you scratch the surface, and suddenly you’re back to a much darker period of British cultural history, when people were overtly racist”, he says. “I think people here are still racist towards Chinese and East Asians, although there was a grudging respect because of the way China has advanced and become an economic superpower. All that seems to have changed with
Covid-19.”

Tse’s experience is far from unique. In the first three months of 2020, police say there have been at least 267 recorded hate crimes against Chinese, East Asian and Southeast Asian people in Britain, compared with 375 in the whole of 2019. Thousands more are believed to have gone unreported.

A survey of more than 400 people of these ethnicities living in Britain found more than a third had experienced racism in public places since the beginning of the outbreak. Researchers warn incidents are likely to increase as the lockdown is lifted.
In a matter of weeks, a country mostly seen as diverse, tolerant and generally welcoming has become a toxic mixture of post-
Brexit racism and Sinophobia, a sometimes menacing place for a resident population of more than 430,000 Chinese people, as well as more than 120,000 Chinese students at British universities.

The threat was most vividly illustrated in early March by a vicious attack on Singaporean student Jonathan Mok, who was left with a black eye, a broken bone below his eye and a swollen face after being attacked by a two teenagers in Oxford Street, just a few minutes’ walk from where Tse would later be verbally abused. Mok told police that as the teenagers attacked him, one shouted, “I don’t want your coronavirus in my country.”

Jonathan Mok posted this picture of his injuries on Facebook after the Singapore student was attacked in Oxford Street, London. Photo: Facebook / Jonathan Mok

Now a group of prominent Chinese, East Asians and Hongkongers living in Britain have banded together to fight the rising tide of attacks and discrimination. CARG –
the Covid-19 Anti-Racism Group – has launched a petition calling on
Prime Minister Boris Johnson to make a clear declaration that the British government “deplores racism and hate crimes arising from Covid-19 against British East Asian people and international students in our country”.

The group also issued a statement calling on the media, public figures and political leaders to emphasise “solidarity, courage and mutual support across all communities rather than feed hostility, division and racism”.

The depth of concern among Chinese and East Asian communities in Britain can be seen in the messages posted by people signing up to CARG. “I’m living in fear for my children and me because of the rising hate crimes,” wrote one. “I’m very worried about my future as a British Chinese living in the UK,” wrote another.

“We’ve had Brexit already so there’s a lot of racist anti-immigrant thinking in this country and now it’s being stoked further,” says Tse, a founding member of CARG. “It is a very dangerous time we are living in. Some Hong Kong students might want to think twice about coming here. I wouldn’t want Hongkongers and mainland Chinese to put their lives at risk. It’s only a matter of time before this Brexit ‘Britain First’ toxicity affects one of us very badly.

They have racialised a disease and they are promoting Sino­phobic propaganda, echoing what the Nazis did in Germany against the Jews

David Tse
“They are playing the racecard and scapegoating. They have racialised a disease and they are promoting Sino­phobic propaganda, echoing what the Nazis did in Germany against the Jews. People are angry. It’s like the 1930s in the sense that the economy is going to tank and people are listening more to extremist voices. Propa­ganda works, especially when people are hurting.”

At the root of the problem, Tse believes, is the fact that while Asian countries have handled the coronavirus effec­tively, Britain’s approach has been marred by “complacency, negligence and incompetence”. He says, “It shows the resi­dual colonialism, arrogance and the notion they knew better because they were more advanced and more civil­ised.

“They were looking down their noses and treating it as a foreign disease that could not possibly affect plucky little Britain. We had nine weeks to prepare and throughout that time I was aware of the severity of the outbreak because all my family and friends in Hong Kong were WhatsApping me on a daily basis. But the government here was just twiddling its thumbs.”

In April, arts patron and CARG founding member Geoff Leong had all four tyres on his Mercedes slashed outside the house he shares with his wife, Marie-Claire, and their three children in north London.

Geoff Leong with wife Marie-Claire. Photo: Red Door News

The founder of Dumplings’ Legend restaurant, in London’s Chinatown, a favourite among celebrities and royalty, believes his car was targeted by someone who knew he was Chinese. He responded by writing the word “Why?” on each damaged tyre and posting a message on the car asking: “How is my NHS (National Health Service) doctor wife going to get to work today?”

“We have to stop this,” Leong says. “There must be no more of this prejudice. People have to speak with a strong voice against race crime, not just put their heads down and ignore it.”

He noticed attitudes to Asians in London had begun to change when he saw a woman stepping to one side and “staring me out” in a shop before the lockdown began. “It was like a comic scene at first,” he says. “Another time, a couple were walking their dog and saw me approach and literally dragged their dog aside to get it away from me – and this was before social distancing was introduced.”

Soon after, Leong’s 12-year-old daughter was shouted at by a woman in their local supermarket and Leong “went back to the shopkeeper who had seen it happen and I said it was really wrong and that you need to stand up to people who do these things”.

Leong with Stephen Fry (second from right) in London, in 2017. Photo: Red Door News
Having moved to Britain from Hong Kong at the age of 10, to attend boarding school, Leong says the atmosphere in London is markedly different now. “London is a very diverse, metropolitan city, people know about political correctness, but the agenda changed when Brexit came and when Trump came. Now, people are thinking, ‘You look Chinese, you look East Asian, you must have Covid-19.’ That is absolutely wrong and we have to stamp this out.”

An early focus of CARG’s campaign were reports in the British press that they say racialised Covid-19 and created “a climate of fear, anger and hatred” towards British Chinese and East and Southeast Asian communities. References to the pandemic as “the Chinese virus” and attempts by the government to deflect criticism of its failure to prepare for the coronavirus’ arrival have triggered racist attacks and attitudes, the group claims.

British-born Chinese Pek-san Tan, who works as head of press at the London Chinatown Chinese Associ­ation and whose parents-in-law are from Hong Kong, is concerned about the potential long-term impact of “casual racism” on her children, aged five and three.

Before schools closed and the lockdown began, young children were playing games of coronavirus “it” in some primary school playgrounds and singling out Asian pupils, she says. “I had seen what was happening and I didn’t think young impressionable minds should be subjected to that because you don’t know what psychological effect it will have on them in the future.”

A shop owner outside her business in Holloway Road. Photo: Alex Hofford

Since the outbreak began, Tan has not taken her children on public transport. Fortunately, her children were at home when she was confronted by three girls who verbally abused her as she walked through a London Underground station with an elderly relative in February. “They started swearing about the coronavirus and using the worst expletives you can imagine,” she says. “I told them they were being ignorant and that the virus doesn’t discriminate.”

Minutes later, as she spoke on her phone to the British Transport Police to report the incident outside the station, Tan was subjected to a second assault. “A well-dressed couple came towards me and the man walked right up to me and coughed in my face,” she says.

Tan says it is important to confront Sinophobia early to stop it spreading. “I know the Chinese com­mu­nity are having it really bad now but I look to other communities in the country – my Muslim friends or my black friends, who have a whole history of racism against them – and I think this is the poem And then they came for me.

“What we are doing with CARG is firefighting an immediate issue in our own city, because we are British citizens and this is our home, and I can’t bear to see my countrymen descend into this sort of discrimination.”

David Tse. Photo: Red Door News

This rising tide of race attacks and Britain’s inability to contain it could have an impact on the number of Chinese and East Asian students who sign up for universities in the country. More than 120,000 attended in the last academic year – a 30,000 increase on 2014-15 – but it is unclear how many will return in the autumn.

For now, at least, it appears racism is not their biggest worry, according to Tan, who has spoken to friends with children at British universities. “The way they see it is that racism is everywhere and their biggest concern is whether the UK health care system can sort itself out and people can learn to wear masks,” she says.

Whether the Covid-19 racism coursing through Britain outlives the pandemic or dies away with it remains to be seen. Whatever happens, walking away is not an option for Tse and many others for whom Britain has been home for decades.

“If I were to leave now and go back to Hong Kong, it would feel like running away from a problem that needs to be resolved,” he says.

Instead, when he found himself confronted by bigotry in Soho, he made sure that – unlike during his days behind the counter in his parents’ takeaway – he wasn’t going to let a racist have the last word. “When she had finished yelling at me, I said, ‘F*** your f***ing racism and your f***ing paranoia,’” he says. “She seemed quite shocked that a Chinese person was assertive enough to answer her in the same way she had spoken to me.”

A chronology of racism – ‘We are not welcomed’

January 30 A female Chinese student in Sheffield, where there are 8,000 Chinese students, is shoved and abused in the street for wearing a face mask. Sarah Ng, from the Sheffield Chinese Commu­nity Centre, says the student was following advice from the media in mainland China and Hong Kong to wear a mask but said the sight of them added to a sense of “panic” in the population.

“We need to put out a balanced message of under­stand­ing about why Chinese students are wearing masks,” she suggests.

February 3 Two Asian students aged 16 and 17 are pelted with eggs in Market Harborough, Leicester­shire. University of Leicester stu­dents also report being subjected to racist attacks for wearing masks.

February 8 Financial worker Pawat Silawattakun, 24, from Thailand, is assaulted and robbed as he gets off a bus in Fulham Road, London, by two teenagers who punch him, breaking his nose, and run away with jeers of “corona­virus”. “It’s made me very wary. It isn’t just a robbery. There’s also knowing I’ve been targeted because of my ethnicity,” he says.
A woman wears a mask during Lunar New Year celebrations in London’s Chinatown, on January 26. Photo: AFP
February 9 A 28-year-old Chinese woman in Birmingham is accused of having coronavirus, called “a dirty c***” and told to “take your f***ing coronavirus back to China”. An Indian friend of the woman, who steps in to protect her, is punched unconscious and hospitalised.

In another incident in the city, a Chinese student is reportedly punched in the face for wearing a face mask and suffers a dislocated jaw. A spokeswoman for the Birmingham Chinese Society says: “There has always been abuse. The virus has given some individuals a reason for that abuse.”

February 24
Singaporean student Jonathan Mok, 23, is left bleeding and bruised after being beaten up in Oxford Street, London, by a gang of four teenagers who shout: “We don’t want your corona­virus in our country.” Two boys aged 15 and 16 are later arrested for racially aggravated assault. Mok says: “I just think it’s a pity to have such experiences taint the image of this beautiful city with so many nice people.”

March 5 A PhD student from China studying at Scotland’s Glasgow University has his clothes torn by a gang of three attackers, who shout “coronavirus” at him. Politician Sandra White says: “To attack an innocent person in the street for no other reason than sheer ignorance is utterly appalling.”

Police CCTV pictures show the two suspects in Jonathan Mok’s attack. Photo: MET / Red Door News

March 12 A teenager spits in the face of a Chinese takeaway owner in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, shouting: “Do you have coronavirus? Do you have coronavirus?” The owner’s daughter, Sharon So, says: “We are worried for my father’s health. What if that boy had the virus? He spat in my dad’s face – my dad could easily be infected.”

March 20 Four Chinese people in their 20s wearing face masks are attacked in Southampton, in southern England, by youths aged 11 to 13 in what police described as a racially aggravated attack linked to the coronavirus outbreak.

March/April Students around Britain report being attacked and abused for wearing face masks. A 24-year-old Chinese postgraduate student in Manchester describes being targeted by a passing car while shopping with a friend: “They rolled down the window and sneezed at us and then laughed.” Some students have stopped going out because of the threat of abuse. “I feel like an outsider,” one says. “We are not welcomed.”

How New York’s Museum of Chinese in America tells ‘the history of people excluded’Chinese overseas

When fire ravaged the Chinatown building containing the museum archives in January, it was feared the stories they told would be lost forever


Alan Chin Published: 20 Jun, 2020



Standing on the corner of Bayard and Mulberry streets in New York’s Chinatown on March 8, Nancy Yao Maasbach, president of the Museum of Chinese in America, and Yue Ma, Moca’s director of collections and research, are dressed head to toe in white Tyvek hazmat suits, with N95 masks covering their faces.

Ma and Yao Maasbach are protecting themselves from mould, asbestos and other toxins that could have been released by the massive fire that consumed the 19th century former public school housing the museum’s archives at 70 Mulberry Street on the night of January 23, two days before Lunar New Year.

The museum itself was left unscathed, four blocks away, on Centre Street, in a modern space designed by Chinese-American architect Maya Lin. But shock ripped through the neighbourhood and social media as initial reports suggested that Moca’s archives – more than 85,000 historic artefacts and documents stored at 70 Mulberry Street, the museum’s previous home – had been destroyed.

The collection included thousands of photographs, out-of-print Chinese-American newspapers and signage from old stores. There were artefacts from laundries, sweatshops and restaurants, as well as “paper son” documents of Chinese men who had evaded the United States’ Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by posing as relatives of American citizens.

“This isn’t only about Asian art,” says Yao Maasbach. “We are part of the American narrative.

”
Yue Ma (in protective gear), of the Museum of Chinese in America, with items recovered from the building, including a sewing machine once used in a sweatshop in New York’s Chinatown. Photo: Alan Chin

Charlie Lai and Jack Tchen were young men in the 1970s, members of a new generation of Chinese-Americans fluent in English and educated at prestigious universities, often on scholarships. Lai was born in Hong Kong and immigrated with his family to New York in the late 60s, when he was nine years old. Tchen was American-born Chinese by way of Madison, Wisconsin.

Both were activists swept up in the cultural and political tumult of the 60s and 70s, and saw oppor­tunities for Chinese-Americans to assert themselves. The pair joined a pioneering Asian-American arts and political organisation called Basement Workshop and began to amass documents and artefacts.

“People thought of me as a librarian for a long time, and not in a good way,” says Tchen.

Lai says, “Stuff was being thrown out into the streets: photographs, letters, leather suitcases. The new people coming into Chinatown had no idea. Nobody cared before, but once somebody looks at it, it becomes valuable.”

The pair formed the Chinatown History Project, in 1980, moving into 70 Mulberry Street four years later with the initial goal of interviewing and recording the senior generation – the labourers who had toiled all their working lives in laundries and restaurants, and the seamstresses of the then-ubiquitous sweatshops in Chinatown. Their early exhibitions were held in a senior citizens’ centre and a public library. “Old-timers would walk up the stairs and start telling stories about the people in the photos,” Tchen recalls.

For almost a century up to 1965, New York’s Chinatown had been an ethnic enclave of a few thousand people, mostly men, but with the lifting of the national-origins quota for immigration and the commitment to family reunification explicit in the new laws, the Chinese population exploded.

In 1991, the Chinatown History Project changed its name to the Chinatown History Museum and then, in 1995, to the Museum of Chinese in America. In 2009, it moved into its present, much-larger space on Centre Street, driven by its expanding archives and, as Lai says, the need for “people to buy this idea that the museum can be nationally respectable. Otherwise it’s just a dead thing”.

Moca co-founder Charlie Lai. Photo: Alan Chin

Both Lai and Tchen eventually left Moca to pursue other projects. Lai led several community organisations and worked for the city government while Tchen became a university professor. Neither is currently involved in the museum’s operations, but when word reached them on a cold January night that 70 Mulberry Street was on fire, their responses were visceral.

“I was thinking of Paris and Notre Dame,” Tchen says, referring to the fire that ravaged the iconic French landmark last year. And Lai promised to “move heaven and hell” to recover Moca’s collections.

After the January 23 fire, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio visited the site, declaring that “70 Mulberry Street is a pillar of Chinatown, and I stand with the entire community as recovery efforts continue. We will do every­thing in our power to help these incredible orga­nisa­tions rebuild and bring this historic building back to life”.

Workers erected a wooden fence, closing off Bayard and Mulberry streets, and on January 28, five days after the fire, a group of stern-faced men gathered at the burnt-out site. They represented myriad city agencies: the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS); Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD); the Department of Buildings (DOB); the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP); and the police and fire services.

Balford Davis, a supervising demolition inspector for HPD, said, “Private contractors will take free-standing walls out, the building itself is still sound.” One of those contractors, who refused to give his name, said, “They don’t know what to do yet, but they are very concerned with the artefacts. Every little piece will be saved.”

Chinatown residents look up at the fire-ravaged building. Photo: Alan Chin

The museum started a GoFundMe that eventually raised more than US$450,000 from 1,800 individual donors, with much of that doubled by a matching fund. Yao Maasbach also received an unsolicited cheque for US$50,000 from the Museum of Food and Drink.

Yuh-Line Niou, New York State assemblywoman for the neighbourhood and the first Chinese-American to be elected to that position, says, “I called the mayor. I was calling all the organisations to connect, to give me a rundown of how to respond to this with which city agencies. A city-owned building has to be managed in the city-owned way. But within 48 hours we made sure that people could operate.”

Moca was informed that the operation to remove its items from the building would begin on January 29, and to prepare, dozens of volunteers arrived to process the objects: former staff, artists, museum employees and members of Moca’s extensive network.

Quintin Haynes (left), of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, with Moca’s Nancy Yao Maasbach and Yue Ma. Photo: Alan Chin

Quintin Haynes, executive deputy commissioner of DCAS, led the effort at 70 Mulberry Street, where a small group of contractors in full hazmat suits went into the building and removed archive boxes one at a time. Ma, as chief curator of the museum, opened each box as it came out to note the contents and assess their condition.

Some were judged in good enough shape to be passed to the waiting volunteers. Water-damaged documents and photographs were placed into a special freezer truck to be flash-frozen and then flash-thawed, the moisture turning directly from ice into steam without first becoming water.

Several hundred cardboard boxes emerged under the lenses of waiting television cameras. Irreplaceable copies of the Chinese-American Times, an early immigrant news­paper, were intact. Costumes donated by a Chinese opera troupe were smoke-infused but undamaged.

Lai and Tchen stood behind a police barricade, quietly watching the operation in progress. They were joined by Ava Chin, who had donated to Moca her great-grandfather’s 1914 steamship ticket as well as his Exclusion-era identi­fication papers.

Back at the museum, volunteers threw away water­logged wrappings and carefully relabelled, photographed and recatalogued each item. Volunteer Lindsey Hobbs, head of conservation and preservation at New York City Municipal Archives, said, “Seven-hundred items out, they looked pretty good. Wet, but not terrible.”

A papier mache sculpture made by survivors of the 1993 Golden Venture shipwreck while they were held in detention in the US is rescued from the fire-damaged building. Photo: Alan Chin

The recovery continued on January 31. Some objects, such as the papier mache sculptures made by survivors of the 1993 Golden Venture shipwreck, detained for years by US immigration authorities, were fragile and considered most at risk but had sustained only minor damage. Yao Maasbach’s mood began to shift from fear and trepidation to guarded optimism, in the belief that the legacy of what she called “the history of people excluded” would be preserved.

Over the following days and weeks, as the initial euphoria wore off, anxiety returned. Frustration gave way to stirrings of panic. By late February, there had been no more action from the city nor were there any concrete plans to save the items that still remained at 70 Mulberry Street.

Icicles hung from the eaves as the invaluable objects continued to be exposed to the elements and deteriorate. News reports had recorded the joyful sights of the first items to be saved, but as Ma clarifies, “We only got 20 per cent out, and it all should have been done in 48 to 72 hours. Nothing was really dry, and time was important.”

Amy Chin, a community activist, historian and genea­logist, said the “recovery is taking too long now that it’s no longer in the spotlight. If it had been the Met [New York’s premier arts institution], all the contents would’ve been rescued by now”.

A part of Moca’s archives exposed to the elements on January 30. Photo: Alan Chin

On February 25, Moca invited a small group of “neighbours and community leaders” to discuss the situation. A projection on the conference-room screen declaring “Our Stories Count!” in large, bold type welcomed the dozen or so attendees, who included veterans of city agencies as well as community activists and business­people. Yao Maasbach made an impassioned plea to get the remainder of the historic items out of 70 Mulberry Street. “There are 350 family collections,” she said, “our identity is in that collection.”

She stressed the museum’s commitment to continuing and completing a digital edition of the archive, which they had begun before the fire. She was grateful that “every major museum has helped. People do care about our stories and our history”. Plans were made for a public march and rally to bring the museum’s plight back into the public eye.

Moca was informed the next day that the recovery would be completed soon. According to the museum’s public statement, “the constant drumbeat to save Moca’s collections was heard loud and clear in City Hall. This is not just a victory for Moca. This is a victory for the entire community, for Chinatown, for every family whose life stories enrich the American narrative.”

Haynes and his team returned at dawn on March 8. Forming a human chain, workers were able to remove items much faster than before. These included large street and window signs from defunct Chinatown businesses, once the visual landscape of the neighbourhood. By the end of the day, the long-delayed task had been completed.

Volunteers assess a box recovered from the building. Photo: Alan Chin

The museum was fortunate that more than 95 per cent of its remaining items were recovered on March 8, because the coronavirus would soon sweep through New York, leading Moca to close its doors to the public on March 13.

Like other institutions, Moca has scrambled to adapt to the pandemic by increasing its digital pro­grammes. It has also launched an initiative called the “OneWorld Covid-19 Special Collection”, asking Chinese-Americans to submit oral histories, texts, photographs, videos and other items documenting their pandemic experience, including the rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans.

“Moca stands against racism,” says Yao Maasbach, “and works tirelessly to share these painful episodes and document the occurrences.”


Beset by multiple crises this Year of the Metal Rat, the museum’s mission has, perhaps, come full circle: as an activist project documenting the struggles of the Chinese community. Reflecting on what Moca ultimately means to him, Lai says, “This is our history, living history, immi­grants, Americans, all of us. To do right by our forebears.”






Alan Chin was born and raised in New York City’s Chinatown. Since 1996, he has worked in China, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Central Asia, and Ukraine, as well as extensively in the United States. He is a contributing photographer to The New York Times and many other publications, an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and his work is in the collections of the Museum Of Modern Art and the Detroit Institute of Art. The New York Times twice nominated Alan for the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Kosovo conflict in 1999 and 2000.

Black Lives Matter protests offer an opportunity for Hong Kong to examine police attitudes to the city’s racial minorities

The 2009 police killing of a Nepalese man shocked Hong Kong’s ethnic minorities, who have long complained of racial profiling

An inquiry into institutional racism is long overdue. The government must start to remedy any racial injustices in the community

Justin Bong-Kwan Published: 25 Jun, 2020


A protester stands in front of Hong Kong’s largest mosque, Kowloon Mosque, and holds a banner to show support for ethnic minorities last October, after a police cannon sprayed blue dye on the mosque and people outside. Photo: Raquel Carvalho

On June 7, demonstrators  marched to the US Consulate in Hong Kong in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement is a protest over police brutality against African Americans and was sparked by the recent  death of George Floyd.

While some may perceive the movement as a response to an American problem, racial inequality is not unique to any particular part of the world. Having said that, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison  stirred up controversy when he remarked that “There's no need to import things happening in other countries here to Australia,” since “Australia is not the United States”.

In these circumstances, is it possible that Hong Kong has its own systemic injustices to address? In particular, do the city’s ethnic minorities  experience racial discrimination from the police?

Racial inequality is a multifaceted issue, and its operation and impact are largely contextual. It follows that an effective anti-discrimination strategy requires gaining a thorough understanding of how racial inequality affects the target community. Otherwise, attempts at tackling potential problems would be mere shots in the dark.

There must be more than a peripheral survey of the treatment of ethnic minorities in policing. For instance, the 1999 Macpherson Report in Britain was commissioned to inquire into matters arising from how the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence was handled. It concluded that institutional racism extended beyond the police service, and that such collective failure was apparent in Britain’s criminal justice system.


Black Lives Matter protests held across Asia

Inquiries such as the Macpherson Report are vital in identifying discriminatory practices that may exist. Unfortunately, there has not been a similar undertaking in the context of Hong Kong.

The lack of relevant data on the city’s police practices in this regard was made apparent in the  case of Singh Arjun vs Secretary for Justice, in which a locally born Punjabi boy alleged that he was subject to racial discrimination by the police. Referring to the Macpherson Report, the court observed that: “Corresponding studies have not been conducted of the Hong Kong Police.”

In 2010, the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau issued the
Administrative Guidelines on Promotion of Racial Equality as general guidance for public authorities – including the police force – to implement measures promoting racial equality. Nevertheless, an information gap between public policy and practice persists.

The presence of this lacuna is vexing, to say the least.

Covid-19 shows up Hong Kong’s insensitivity to ethnic minorities
31 May 2020

Ethnic minorities in Hong Kong have complained of racial profiling by the police. In 2009, Nepalese man Limbu Dil Bahadur was fatally shot by a police officer purportedly acting in self-defence.

The incident caused widespread concern among the city’s ethnic minority communities over police treatment of ethnic minorities. In a letter to then police commissioner
Tang King-shing, a group of ethnic minority residents said they were “feeling less and less secure” following the incident.

A coroner’s inquest into Limbu’s death delivered a verdict of lawful killing. In the subsequent judicial review application, the Court of First Instance noted: “The jury’s conclusion of lawful killing without any recommendation implies that the jury did not believe that any systemic defect in [the police officer]’s training had led to Limbu’s death.”

In the absence of a comprehensive review of other police practices, it is questionable whether the same belief can be safely held for all police practices.

Nevertheless, the reality is that a segment of Hong Kong society feels unsafe – is this not a cause célèbre to look into the matter? In the event that inequality is being perpetuated by the public authorities, the government has a responsibility to identify such injustices and remedy them promptly. It is important that the government recognises that it has this role.

Indeed, the potential for social progress is arguably limited unless there is a resolve to effect change. German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out: “Racism has always been present, but sadly [Germany] also [has] this [problem]. We should first sweep in front of our own door.”


Similarly, the Black Lives Matter movement should be a wake-up call for the Hong Kong government to be more proactive in investigating and addressing the city’s racial inequalities.


Justin Bong-Kwan is a practising barrister based in Hong Kong and a freelance writer.
Ethnic minorities in Hong Kong

‘Limited food, no wages’: domestic workers struggle amid quarantine in Hong Kong

Some workers say their employers are not paying them or giving them enough to eat during the mandatory coronavirus quarantine, according to rights groups

With thousands of other workers arriving soon, activists urge the city to provide health advice in multiple languages and set up a complaints channel for Covid-related issues
Raquel Carvalho Published: 21 Jun, 2020

Foreign domestic workers seen in Central, Hong Kong. 

File photo: SCMP / Jonathan Wong

VIDEO'S AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

When Gloria – not her real name – returned to Hong Kong from the Philippines late last month, she had to do a mandatory quarantine imposed by the government to combat the coronavirus pandemic. While her employer put her in a hotel, those 14 days were all but easy.

“When my boss told me about doing the quarantine in a hotel, I asked her who would pay the expenses. She said she would. But then she told me to bring some biscuits and noodles,” says Gloria, who was under lockdown in the Philippines for about two months.

“Of course I could not bring enough food for 14 days. After a few days, she gave me one lunch and nothing else,” the domestic worker says.

Gloria has worked for the same employer for more than four years, but she ended up having to turn to a support group that provided her with meals. “Luckily, there are many people here who are willing to help,” she says.

Other than having limited access to food, Gloria, who is in her 30s, also did not receive her salary during those two weeks. Yet, she decided not to complain to the consulate or the Labour Department out of fear of getting fired.

“I have three children and my husband doesn’t have a job now because of the coronavirus [crisis], so my salary is very important,” Gloria says.

Domestic workers are being placed in a vulnerable situation … Many don’t want to complain because they don’t want to be terminated and some are not aware of their rightsIndonesian Migrant Workers Union

Domestic workers are being placed in a vulnerable situation … Many don’t want to complain because they don’t want to be terminated and some are not aware of their rights Indonesian Migrant Workers Union

She is among dozens of domestic workers who have recently returned from their home countries – mostly the Philippines and Indonesia – to Hong Kong as travel restrictions are slowly being lifted.

With thousands of other migrants expected to land in the city in the coming months, rights groups are urging the government to make sure domestic workers are given proper accommodation and food during quarantine, while instructions upon arrival should be provided in multiple languages. They also call on authorities to set up a special complaints mechanism that deals only with queries related to Covid-19.

Sringatin, chairwoman of Indonesian Migrant Workers Union, says that at least 10 Indonesian workers have complained about poor conditions during quarantine, but total numbers are yet to be compiled.

Domestic workers seen on their day off in Central on April 12, 2020. Photo: SCMP / Edmond So

The union leader says she is aware of cases of domestic workers who were fired after they experienced some symptoms similar to those of Covid-19, although they have not tested positive. She has also come across workers whose salaries were not paid during the quarantine.

“Domestic workers are being placed in a vulnerable situation – put under quarantine and not paid. Many don’t want to complain because they don’t want to be terminated and some are not aware of their rights,” Sringatin says.

Others have to deal with technological and language barriers that prevent them from understanding the instructions given by authorities.

Why are overseas Filipinos worried about Duterte’s anti-terror law?
14 Jun 2020


Food that does not meet their religion requirements has also been an issue, she says.

“We know of this domestic worker who was sent to a government quarantine centre, where she was not given suitable food. She is Muslim, so she can’t eat pork,” the migrant activist says.

Sringatin says she is particularly worried about the newcomers who are unfamiliar with the city. Thousands are expected to arrive in the coming months.

“The government needs to provide clear information and instructions in multiple languages on how they can ensure their rights,” the union leader says.

Sringatin says the Labour Department should introduce a complaints system to deal with coronavirus-related queries, instead of having the workers using the general support line.

The union leader also calls for a subsidy to help employers with the costs of the mandatory quarantine. “We know that employers are also facing some financial difficulties. So if workers don’t go to quarantine centres that meet the standards, the government could help employers to cover the cost of a hotel where workers can do the quarantine,” she says.

Thousands of Filipino migrant workers to return to homes after Covid-19 quarantines

In Hong Kong, those who hire domestic workers are required to provide suitable accommodation in their homes as well as food or an allowance.

Last weekend, a group of employment agencies called for newly hired domestic workers to be quarantined in government centres on their arrival in Hong Kong, as most local families did not want to house them over the quarantine period and take health risks.

Dr Leung Yiu-hong, chief port health officer of the Centre for Health Protection, said at a Legislative Council committee meeting on Monday that the government was in talks with the hospitality industry on finding cheap hotels where the workers could spend the compulsory 14 days of isolation.

Singapore to build new dorms, raise migrant workers’ living standards
1 Jun 2020


Cynthia Abdon-Tellez, head of the Mission for Migrant Workers, says her group has received multiple quarantine-related queries, mostly from Filipino domestic workers.

“Food has been a major issue. We encountered one case where she was made to eat only noodles for several days,” she says.

Abdon-Tellez says that from March to May, her group received 135 queries from domestic workers who have raised mostly coronavirus-related issues. The lack of a day off has remained a problem since the beginning of the pandemic, with some workers being prevented from leaving the house of their employers for several months now.

“We talked to this worker who told us that she hasn’t had a day off since January. She is not allowed to go out, although the members of the family go in and out the house. She is under a lot of stress, but she does not want to be fired,” the activist says.

Malaysia’s law delay on improving migrant worker housing criticised
29 May 2020


Filipino consul general Raly Tejada says his office has received some complaints, such as “workers not getting enough food or crowding in facilities used as quarantine centres”.

Tejada estimates that about 12,000 Filipino workers are expected to arrive to Hong Kong in the next few months, including about 7,000 newly hired workers and another 4,700 who had been previously fired and had found new employers.

“We are working with the Hong Kong government to ensure that agencies and their employers comply with their obligations pertaining to the two-week quarantine rule for arriving workers in Hong Kong,” he says.

The Indonesian consulate did not respond to queries sent by This Week in Asia.

A spokesman for the Labour Department says that unless domestic workers come from countries or places where after risk assessment returnees are required to stay at quarantine centres, their employers should make “prior arrangements” so the workers can do the compulsory quarantine.

“Employers are also reminded to comply with their obligations under the standard employment contract, including bearing the accommodation expenses, providing food allowance … and not to compel their foreign domestic helpers to work outside of their residence,” the spokesman says.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: quarantine hits domestic helpers hard

COMMENTS

Raquel Carvalho is Asia Correspondent for the Post. She joined the newspaper in 2014. Most of her investigative and in-depth stories have been focused on human rights, cross-border security, illicit trade and corruption. She was previously the chief reporter at a Portuguese daily newspaper in Macau, where she moved to from Europe in 2008.

Free Julian Assange now

The prisoner of conscience is being persecuted by two self-styled leaders of Western democracies, while his own country, Australia, silently ignores his abuse and torture

Published: 28 Jun, 2020

Julian Assange has been detained under inhumane conditions amounting to torture by the British government at the behest of Washington for more than a year.
Last Friday was the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Doctors for Assange, an international group of medical workers, have exposed the terrible conditions in which the founder of 

WikiLeaks has been held, and called for his immediate release.

As his health has deteriorated, 216 doctors from 33 countries have called for an end to “The ongoing torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange”, the title of a correspondence published in the latest The Lancet, the prestigious British medical journal.

“As a person incarcerated solely for publishing activity, continuing to hold Mr Assange under these conditions represents the torture of a publisher and journalist,” they wrote.

The prisoner of conscience is being persecuted by two self-styled leaders of democracies, while his own country, Australia, silently ignores his abuse and torture.

Assange travelled to Europe and Asia trying to recruit hackers, US government claims
25 Jun 2020


Assange’s crimes are nothing more or less than exposing the war crimes and hypocrisy of the US and those of its allies. The US extradition case against Assange is a direct assault on international journalism and publishing.

In May last year, Nils Melzer, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and two medical experts visited Assange and described his treatment in prison as amounting to psychological torture.

The Lancet article warns: “In the context of attacks against and arrests of journalists at the recent global protests, his treatment and the precedent it sets are of international concern.”

Besides withholding medical treatment, “isolation and under-stimulation are key psychological torture tactics, capable of inducing severe despair, disorientation, destabilisation, and disintegration of crucial mental functions”.

Among his many key exposes are the US military’s targeting of civilians in Iraq, conducting secret drone strikes in Yemen, and spying on UN representatives.

The US extradition case against Assange is similar to that against Chinese telecoms giant
Huawei’s No 2 Meng Wanzhou in Canada.

Both involve the abusive application of American laws against foreigners on foreign soil, with the connivance of allied governments.

It is also part of America’s cover-up of its war crimes, a campaign which most recently imposes sanctions against officials of the International Criminal Court – and their family members – for investigating possible atrocities committed by US military and intelligence agents.

If Americans can get Assange and Meng, they can get anyone.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Free Julian Assange from his jail cell now

Alex Lo has been a Post columnist since 2012, covering major issues affecting Hong Kong and the rest of China. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.