Sierra Speaker Series: New Findings from the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project

The monthly Sierra Speaker Series connects folks to the rich cultural and natural history of the area. Join us at Donner Memorial State Park Visitor Center to learn and engage! Doors open at 5 pm, and the presentation is to follow at 5:30 pm. Admission is a suggested $5 donation. Light refreshments will be available. Parking is free after 5 pm.

Roland Hsu (Stanford University) will present findings and historical images from the multi-year study: the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University. Hsu served as Director of Research for the project’s research team of more than forty scholars from North America, Europe, and Asia, representing the wide range of disciplines including history, anthropology, archeology, economics, sociology, and cultural studies. This talk will provide the latest and most comprehensive answers to long-standing questions about the Chinese laborers, why they came, what they experienced, and what is their legacy in North America, the region of the Sierra Nevada, and their home-origin communities. The speaker will also highlight materials that the Stanford project is making available for further study.

Roland Hsu, PhD, is Director of Research for the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford University. He is the author/editor of scholarly articles and books including: The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad (Stanford University Press, 2019); “Before the ‘Truckee Method’: Race, Space, and Capital in Truckee’s Chinese Community, 1870-1880” (Amerasia Journal, 45, 2019); Migration and Integration: New Models for Mobility and Coexistence (University of Vienna Press, 2016); Ethnic Europe: Mobility, Identity, and Conflict in a Globalized World (Stanford University Press, 2010), and additional articles in journals including Le Monde Diplomatique. Hsu’s research is dedicated to bringing creative and multi-disciplinary thinking to recovering history and supporting displaced peoples.