The transcontinental railroad faced geographical obstacles across the entire line but none were quite as formidable as the snowy granite mountain range rising east of Sacramento. Getting through the Sierra Nevada would require fortitude, technology -- and the sacrifice of many workers' lives.

Massive Work Force
With the shaft completed, two teams of Chinese workers descended to the middle of the rock and began blasting the tunnel from the inside out. The steam engine was employed to cart out their debris.

On September 1, work finished on the Emigrant Gap Tunnel (Tunnel No. 2), and those crews were redistributed to the winter quarters and tunnel work waiting upon the summit. That winter the men at Tunnel No. 6 were almost completely Chinese, with a few Caucasians on the west end. Gangs consisted of one white foreman per 30 or 40 workers, with each gang working one of three rotating eight-hour shifts a day. An average of six to ten thousand Chinese worked on the railroad that winter, with as many as 12,000 at one time. Black powder was expensive, and its preparation labor-intensive, requiring men to drill deep two-inch-wide holes by hand in order to clear shallow amounts of rock.

But progress increased substantially on all fronts when British chemist James Howden appeared in February 1867. He brought nitroglycerin, which he mixed on location. The compound allowed for shallower holes of narrow width, but its blasts achieved a much greater destructive yield. Nitroglycerin debris was also much easier to move than the debris of black powder, saving a lot of cumulative time and sweat. Workers were able to advance up to two feet per day on all four faces, instead of measuring each hard-won inch.

The railroad lost uncounted men to snow. Avalanches could cut down dozens at a time.

"There was one large snowslide at Strong's Canyon known as Camp 4. In this camp were two gangs of Chinese for Tunnels 11 and 12, also a gang of culvert men. The slide took it all, and one of the culvert men was not found until the following spring," wrote Gilliss.

Tunnel No. 6 was a truly staggering feat of engineering. It measured 1,659 feet in length, and reached, at its deepest, 124 feet into the rock. It sat more than 7,000 feet above sea level. Calculations used to position its end points and the central shaft were so accurate that the workers found they were only two inches off when they broke through. And it had been hand-carved, without electricity and without steam-powered tools, except for the single old engine used to hoist debris. The Union Pacific ramped up their track-laying speed and built confidently into Nevada, knowing their hardest task was behind them.

Canal laborers mostly from China and Jamaica worked, sacrificed and died while building the largest canal the world had seen to date.

Combating harsh terrain, disease, and deplorable living conditions, these workers held a variety of different jobs in the canal zone, their pay and quality of life often directly related to their ethnicity.

When the United States announced its plan to build in Panama, promises of grandeur breathed fresh life into workers recruited to the area. “You here who are doing your work well in bringing to completion this great enterprise are standing exactly as a soldier of the few great wars of the world’s history,” Teddy Roosevelt announced to workers during his trip to Panama in 1906. “This is one of the great works of the world.”

In December of that year, two years into the project, there were already more than 24,000 men working on the Panama Canal. Within five years, the number had swelled to 45,000. These workers were not all from the United States, but from Panama, the West Indies and Asia.

The dense and untamed jungle that covered the 50 miles between coasts was filled with deadly snakes. The venom of the coral snake attacked the nervous system, and a bite from the ten-foot mapana snake caused internal bleeding and organ degeneration. The rainy season, which lasted from May to November, kept workers perpetually wet and coated in mud.

yellow fever was the most treacherous ailment, both physically and mentally. Just the mention of an outbreak caused such panic that defection rates were higher than mortality from the disease itself.

Every evening, a train traveled to Mount Hope Cemetery by the city of Colón, its cars bri,mming with coffins, forcing the men to confront the great odds against their survival.

U.S. citizens were used sparingly in Panama because they were both disease-prone and demanded higher wages.

Skilled U.S. laborers adept at rail jobs: switchmen, signalmen, locomotive drivers, mechanics, electrical engineers, and foremen; came to the canal with the promise of a generous pay package that included free benefits and services, 42 paid vacation days and 30 days paid sick leave

The presence of the ailanthus tree (the so-called "Tree of Heaven") throughout California has long been a puzzle. The tree is native to China, but not to the United States; yet it grows profusely in those regions where early Chinese immigrants lived.

The reason Chinese immigrants brought ailanthus seeds to this country is that the trees are thought to contain an herbal remedy beneficial for arthritis. The Chinese "wedding plant" was also brought to this country as an herbal remedy, but is less easily recognized.

Herbal medicine fulfilled an important health need in the nineteenth century for both Chinese and non-Chinese alike. Western medicine had not yet developed wonder drugs, anesthetics, vaccinations, or sophisticated surgical techniques. Patent medicines were widely used, and their contents were not regulated by any agency of the government.

Drastic measures, such as bleeding, were sometimes resorted to. On the other hand, Chinese herbal remedies had one to two thousand years of use be hind them. In fact, some so-called "wonder drugs" are actually synthesized forms of various herbs.

Even today, some medically trained Chinese Americans prefer some herbs to their synthesized forms because the natural herbs have no side effects.

"Sir: I am a Chinaman, a republican, and a lover of free institutions"

by Norman A Sing

California Governor John Bigler was among those who turned against the Chinese after expressing friendship toward them. In his campaign for re-election in 1852, he urged fellow citizens to "check this tide of Asiatic immigration," claiming that the Chinese were incapable of becoming American. They could not assimilate.

Norman Asing, the owner of a restaurant in San Francisco, responded to Bigler in an open letter published in The Daily Alta California on May 15, 1852.

Sir: I am a Chinaman, a republican, and a lover of free institutions; am much attached to the principles of the government of the United States...

The effect of your late message has been thus far to prejudice the public mind against my people, to enable those who wait the opportunity to hunt them down, and rob them of the rewards of their toil...

You argue that this is a republic of a particular race — that the Constitution of the United States admits of no asylum to any other than the pale face.

This proposition is false to the extreme, and you know it.

The declaration of your independence, and all the acts of your government, your people, and your history are all against you.

Cantonese words and music coding system can be traced back to the late Song dynasty.. It can be easily verified because these music, prose, etc, existed outside China, in Japan, Taiwan and perhaps Vietnam and they are similar to what the Cantonese are using in their songs, music codes and prose.