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died out of 10,000 to 12,000 Chinese workers. (The Asian American Almanac, p. 46; Connie Young Yu, “Who Are the Chinese Americans?,” in Susan Gall, managing ed., and Irene Natividad, executive ed., The Asian American Almanac: A Reference Work on Asians in the United States [Detroit: Gale Research, 1995]; Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, 28.) The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, p. 219, gives the figure of 12,000 to 14,000 Chinese workers. William Chew, a descendent of a transcontinental railroad worker, found through his research that on average for every two miles of track laid, three Chinese laborers died in accidents (Salt Lake Tribune, May 11, 1999).

64 twenty thousand pounds of bones: Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora (New York: Kodansha America, 1994), p. 55.

64 journey back to the Sierra Nevada to search for the remains of their colleagues: Connie Young Yu, “John C. Young, A Man Who Loved History,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1989 (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1989), p. 6.

64 excluded from the ceremonies: Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans, p. 31.

64 laid off most of the Chinese workers: Ibid., p. 32.

64 refusing to give them even their return passage: Ibid.

64 retained only a few hundred: Ibid., p. 32.

64 converted boxcars: Origins & Destinations: 41 Essays on Chinese America, p. 129.

Chapter Six. Life on the Western Frontier

66 whites were paid seven dollars a day, the Chinese only two dollars or less: Leigh Bristol-Kagan, “Chinese Migration to California, 1851-1882: Selected Industries of Work, the Chinese Institutions and the Legislative Exclusion of a Temporary Work Force,” Ph.D. dissertation in history and East Asian languages, Harvard University, 1982, p. 38.

66 “shaking, toothless wrecks”: Edwin Clausen and Jack Bermingham, Chinese and African Professionals in California: A Case Study of Equality and Opportunity in the United States (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), p. 14.

67 austere Chinese work ethic all but disappeared: Madeline Y. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home, p. 42.

67 “when the ships occasionally cannot [sail]”: Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 42.

67 “simple, reverential, and thrifty”: Zhiqiu Pan, Ningyang Cundu (Ningyang deposited letters) (Toishan: n.p., 1898), as cited in Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 40.

68 “In a flash”: Ibid.

68 “various charities are everywhere”: Madeline Y. Hsu, pp. 41—42.

68 beheaded some seventy-five thousand suspected participants: Jack Chen, p. 16.

69 clashes killed two hundred thousand people: Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 27.

70 “red-haired, green-eyed foreign devils”: R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee, eds., Land Without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), p. 16; Lee Chew, “The Life Story of a Chinaman,” in Hamilton Holt, ed., The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans (New York: J. Pott, 1906), p. 285.

70 “[A]s we walked along the streets”: “Life History and Social Document of Mr. J. S. Look,” Seattle, August 13, 1924 by C. H. Burnett, p. 1. Major Document 182, Box 27, Survey of Race Relations, archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. (The hair color, clothes, and courtship rituals of white Americans provoked the most interest among Chinese immigrants, judging from their memoirs.)

70 “barbarian women”: R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee, p. 34.

70-71 “cacophony of dingdang noises”: Ibid., p. 34.

71 “a great bother”: Ibid., pp. 35-36.

71 “ritual of touching lips together”: Ibid., p. 38.

71 “requires making a chirping sound”: Ibid., p. 38.

72 only one in ten California farm laborers was Chinese: Betty Lee Sung, The Story of the Chinese in America (New York: Collier, 1971), pp. 35-36. Carey McWilliams, California, the Great Exception (New York: Current Books, 1949), p. 152.

72 one in two: Ibid.

72 almost nine in ten: By 1886, the Chinese comprised 85.7 percent of the California agricultural force.