VOA常速英语:探索：带你揭开150年前中国铁路工人在美国大罢工的真相

A photograph is a window into the past, for Russell Low, these photos also represent his family’s identity.

“My family took part in the building, not only of the West, but really the building of America.That railroad that he helped to build really united our country, and it was probably one of the most important achievements for America in the 19th century and we took part in that.”

Low’s great-grandfather, Huang Lai Wah and his brother Jick Wah, like most of the Chinese railroad workers,came from China’s Guangdong province and helped build the railroad that would link the western part of the United States to the East.

Low believes his ancesters also took part in the labors’ strike of June, 1867.

“It’s significant because this was the first major strike that any Chinese group ever did.Now there were earlier strikes, but this was a major one, which involved 2,000 Chinese who struck for one week.”

Chinese workers went on strike for more pay, shorter working hours and better working conditions.While historians commonly believe the workers did not get what they wanted,historian SueFawn Chung found new details in an old newspaper article.

“But a month later, they got their, at least their wage increase that they wanted from 35 to 40 dollars a month.And it was sort of the Chinese system of, you know, ‘save face.’‘OK, we’ll let you save face by saying we didn’t accomplish anything, but you’ll give us the 5 dollar increase a month.”

After building the railroad, Low’s great-grandfather stayed in the US, finding success in the cigar industry, he married Tom Ying.

“She was brought here as a child slave. So we went from a railroad worker and a slave girl to the first Chinese graduating from UC Berkley.”

That was just one of their five children, the descendants of Huang number 100.They include war heroes, such as Low’s father, who received a Silver Star for his actions in the Second World War.

“If you think about what binds these railroad worker descendants together, and we’ve all met each other,I think it’s this courage of the ancestors.These young men who built that railroad had the right stuff, a determination where they never quit … you had to adapt.They knew how to learn so they could bend like a supple willow tree and never break.”

Those characteristics depicted here by Guangdong-born artist Mian Situ have been engrained through the generations,honoring the legacy of thousands of Chinese who left their homes for the unknown in hopes of a better life in America.

Elizabeth Lee, VOA news, San Diego.