Ninety percent of the workers for the Central Pacific were Chinese Immigrants.

What did the Chinese workers do?

They performed the hard work of building the railroad. They graded roads, bored tunnels through solid rock, and laid track. They had to cut down trees and clear dense brush, cut away land, fill in land, and build bridges. They did it by hand because there were no steam shovels, power drills or tunneling machines. They used picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, carts, and horses. The men worked ten hours per day, six days per week.

This job was not only exhausting, but dangerous. They used explosives to get through the mountains!

Jick Wah was an immigrant worker who came to the United States with his brother, Hung Lai Wah, to work on the Transcontinental Railroad. Jick Wah lost his eye in a blasting accident while working on these tunnels.

The work was hard, and the Chinese workers were not treated the same as the White workers.

White workers worked fewer hours and were paid more than Chinese laborers even if they performed the same duties. Most White workers had safer jobs as supervisors, carpenters, or blacksmiths.

Chinese workers had to pay for their own food while the railroad provided food and housing for White workers. White workers ate a diet that consisted mainly of beef and potatoes. This was not food that Chinese immigrants liked to eat. The Chinese diet consisted of fish, meat, rice, and vegetables. They lived in groups of 12 to 20 men, with one as their designated cook. The cook prepared meals and provided tea to the workers during the day. The boiled water required for the tea killed any bacteria that infected the water. White workers did not boil their water before drinking. This meant that Chinese workers did not get sick very often from water-born illness. Chinese workers also bathed at the end of every workday, which kept them healthier.

Want to know more? This video explains what bacteria, or microbes, are and why it is good to make sure they are not in your food.

What did the workers eat?

From the soil, archaeologists can tell that Chinese workers ate local foods like elderberry, bearberry, and fish from the lake near Summit Camp. However, Chinese workers also ate a lot of imported (brought from other countries) food.

Chinese cooks used cooking features like big fireplaces. These fireplaces could be big enough to cook a whole pig! They enabled cooks to prepare enough food to feed everyone at once. Some meat was roasted in these stoves.

Some foods Chinese workers might have eaten:

• Dried seafood like oysters, cuttle-fish, fish, abalone, and dried vegetables such as bamboo sprouts, seaweed, and mushrooms.
• Sweet rice crackers.
• Salted cabbage.
• Chinese sugar.
• Vermicelli noodles.
• Chinese bacon cut up into salt cutlets.
• Peanut oil.
• Tea.
• Rice.
• Barley.
• Beans.
• Wine.
• pork and chicken.
• Fresh fish from local lakes.

White workers ate mostly:

• Beef
• Beans
• Bread
• Butter
• Potatoes

Have you had any of the food the Chinese workers ate? click the button below to select all the foods you've tried.

Chinese workers ate lots of dried food.

Without access to refrigeration, many cultures dried much of their food to make it last longer. They used the heat of the sun to dry their food since they did not have tools like dehydrators that we use today.

You can make dried fruits and vegetables like this too, but make sure you ask an adult to help you.

To dry fruits or vegetables in the sun:

• Cut the fruit or vegetable into thin slices.
• Place slices on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
• Leave them in a very sunny spot until they are completely dry.

You might also want to cover the food with some kind of fabric to protect from flies. This could take a few days, so be patient!