Tweet thread by Beth Lew-Williams, professor of History at Princeton, 4/12/19
When
profs @Stanford launched an investigation
of Chinese railroad workers on the Central Pacific, I thought this might bring
a reckoning akin to the slavery and justice projects at other universities.
Under the direction of profs Gordon H. Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin, however, it became both more and less. It
flourished into a 7-year transnational, interdisciplinary collaboration, a website, public history events, and two books.
But the larger project of recovering the experiences of
Chinese RR workers—so important and necessary—dwarfed the question of Leland
Stanford’s role and the University’s obligations. And the truth is there are no
easy answers. As CA governor, Leland Stanford declared the Chinese “an inferior
race,” calling for a “country settled by free white men.” As president of the
CPRR, however, he turned to Chinese labor in desperation and justified his
choice, describing the Chinese as “quiet” & “industrious.”
As many as 20,000 Chinese worked on the CPRR, tunneling
through the Sierras. They earned less than white men and did more hazardous
work. When they struck for higher wages in 1867, the CPRR cut off their
supplies and starved them out. Both literally and figuratively, Chinese workers
built Stanford University. First their backbreaking labor on the railroad built
Stanford’s vast wealth. Then they helped to construct the university itself,
including planting every tree on the iconic Palm Drive. 50 Chinese served the Stanfords in their private Palo Alto home, fed them &
nursed them through illness. The Stanfords grew fond
of their Chinese servants & gave gifts to a chosen few. At the same time,
Leland Stanford championed Chinese Restriction & Exclusion as a US senator,
working to end Chinese migration. He denounced anti-Chinese violence in CA, but
gave into vigilantes’ demands to lay off workers.
Just before he died in 1892, Stanford had second thoughts.
“One time I had some fears of the Chinese overrunning the country, but for some
years I have had none,” he said. “We need the Chinese here to work… I don’t
know what we would do without them.” Faint praise, indeed. It feels easier to
condemn slavery, and universities’ ties to it, than to condemn this blend of
racism/nativism. Perhaps it’s easier to agree, in retrospect, that slavery was
immoral, than it is to contemplate, in the present day, the ethics of immigrant
labor exploitation.